Exploring the possibilities

My training plan for Sunday reads:

Long bike ride. Explore, no limit on how far you want to go.

Explore.  Investigate.  Scout.  Map.  Discover.  Reconnoitre.  A word with possibilities.  A word which conjured up visions of intrepid adventurers making their way through uncharted terrain.  A word which seemed at odds with dull suburbia.

Until I saw a bus.  Not just any bus.  The useless bus.  The bus which follows the same route as the useful bus until it’s within a mile of my house, when it veers off just to spite me.  That bus, but in the wrong place.

It turns out that the useless bus has a life beyond the tube station.  Rather than terminating there it carries on.  Which made me wonder, where do all the other buses go?  I know the routes that buses take through my stomping ground, but once they are outside my territory, they could go anywhere.

So I’ve decided to explore using the medium of bus.  I started last night.  I cycled the route of the useless bus from start to finish and back again.  I’m going to need some rules, which I’ll add to as needed.

Rule 1:
I can start at any point along a route.

Rule 2:
I can cycle a route in one go or in stages.

Rule 3:
Where a cycle lane runs parallel to the bus route, its use is encouraged.

Rule 3a:
But not essential.  Especially if it’s badly signposted, has more give way signs than something made entirely of give way signs and ends abruptly in the middle of a pavement with a “Cyclists Dismount” sign and no through way back onto the road.

Rule 4:
To count as complete, I must have cycled the entire route in both directions.

Rule 4a:
Even if there’s an evil hill.

Rule 5:
As exploration is the key, cycling along one section of road counts towards all relevant bus routes.

Rule 5a:
Because there is no way I’m cycling round that evil one way system another twelve times.

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