Over the years there have been many people asking me – “Do you actually cycle this bicycle?”, “How far can you go?” , “What can you fit in the trailer” and much more. The answer is yes – The Pizza Bike is the main form of transportation that I use to run the business and If you live in Bath I’m sure you’ve seen the bright orange bicycle zooming through town, parked at The bell, making pizza at Queen Square, or slowly climbing some of the hills in Bath.
There a tons of stories surrounding The Smallest Pizzeria In The World ( most of them unbelievable but all true ) and today I will tell you the one about The Pizza Bike’s longest and most epic bicycle ride…
A few weeks I had a really, really busy weekend ahead with 2 mini festivals in The Bell on Friday and Sunday and a private party in Bristol on Saturday. It was all looking as business as usual until on Friday lunch time I’ve noticed massive amount of water leaking from my support vehicle and after looking under the hood – the diagnose was obvious – the water pump was gone. Stuck with an event in Bristol on Saturday I’ve rushed to all the rental companies in Bath to hire a van, however neither Hertz, Enterprise or Europcar had any vehicle available to hire for the weekend.
At that point there were 2 options – to cancel the party or find some way to get to Bristol on Saturday. I sit down and thought for a 10-15 minutes and decided – Well – the cycle path to Bristol is relatively flat , the weather looks good, the battery should last for 20ish miles and If I stip down the set up everything The Pizza Bike would be light enough to get to a field near Bristol on one piece. Before all that journey of course I had to do the usual Friday evening at The Bell – and man was it busy this evening? At 11:40PM with 2 pizzas left in the coolbox I’ve just told people that I just have to stop for the night and get some rest before heading on that journey the next day.
I’ve got home around 1 in the evening , put the bike for charge, and went to sleep for a few hours. On Saturday morning got up early and headed to Green Park Station to do my prep, pack up and leave for the party. Few hours later the trailer was loaded with one roccbox oven, 50 pizzas, table, few peels, some pizza boxes, a table, gazebo and ready to go . The weight seemed a lot but still ok, the weather was really nice and sunny so I thought well If I can pull this one off – today is the day. So at about 1:30PM The Pizza Bike left Green Park Station on 21.3 miles journey to Ashton Gate a village just outside of Bristol.
The first stretch of the journey was short from Green Park Station to the beginning of the cycle path but very crucial to see how the bike will handle the load and what speed i can go with. All went good the bike was going steady at around 7-10 miles on the flat with minimum electric assistance. 10 minutes later I was on the cycle path to Bristol with all systems up and running at 100%. The ride was slow, steady and enjoyable – quite a few people got really amused by the heavy orange bicycle towing a massive trailer with a speed of snail – I remember someone said “Fair play mate!”. So sneaking through all the gates along the cycle path I’ve successfully reached Bristol with around 60 % battery left for the next part of the journey – Cycling through the main roads in Bristol and heading out to Aston Gate. The lack of traffic was really helpful, however changing lanes, signaling and handling the bike was quite tricky but with a few throttle pushes I’ve made it through Temple Gate, Redcliff, Bedminster and even managed to cross the a370 and head to Ashton with no issues. Once I’ve passed the Ashton Court – I had a few miles left and push the throttle a little bit to help me through the hills.
At around 5PM on 9th of June 2018 -The Pizza Bike successfully arrived to a filed near Bristol 21.3 miles away from home. The battery had about 20% left , the bike and the trailer were all at fully working order and I felt a massive relive that I made it through.
The next part was the easy part – setting up, knocking out 50 pizzas and at 10PM all the guests were full and happy so my job was done. I’ve left around 11PM lighter with a fully charged battery on a way to back home. This time with the roads being empty I cycle through all the main roads in Bristol and then took A4 to Bath instead of the cycle path. That ride home was fast – at some points I’ve reached a top speed of 15 miles / hour and got back to Green Park Station at around 1:30AM – unloaded the equipment and head back to home for a few hours sleep.
On Sunday was another early start and the usual busy busy day at The Bell and eventually at 10PM my 3 day non-stop shift was finally over.
So at the end that mad weekend set up a new world record of how far a pizza bike can go (21.3 miles to be precise) which you have to admit compared to the previous one (1.2miles) is a very very big jump 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Angel
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