The last proper cycle pub crawl that Dave and I had attempted was in September 2004. As Dave was shortly to visit Australia for some field work, it was decided that it was high time we did another. Particularly fruitful pubs were to be found in the countryside to the West of Oxford (The Hanboroughs, Crawley, Finstock etc) so it was decided to concentrate our efforts here. A route had also been planned in advance involving about 20 hostelries thereby allowing us still to do plenty should some be shit or shut. Starting just after 1pm, we travelled through Yarnton and arrived at the first stop which was the Royal Sun at Begbroke. It is a reasonable pub, but nothing special, so we sat outside and enjoyed some Old Hooky in preference to London Pride which we get all the time.

Cutting through some fields took us to the White House at Bladon where we were pleased to find both Reverend James and Tanners Jack on in addition to Greene King IPA. Another pretty good pub and frequented by countrified locals keen to get themselves shitfaced and sleep it off on the Bank Holiday Monday. The Gents' toilet is worth a mention because it has a classic three man partitioned Victorian trough. The main road took us to a few in quick succession, starting with the George and Dragon in Long Hanborough which is a place that I had never visited before. It's quite nice with some tables out front and a nice separate dining room. Beer was available in the shape of Adnam's Broadside, London Pride and Brakespear. A few yards up the road is the Bell that affords very good northwards views from its beer garden as well as a better than average selection on snacks. We had slightly substandard Tanner's Jack although from a pub that does Old Speckled Hen on pissflow you can't expect wonders. Abbot and yet more IPA were available too. The final of the Hanborough pubs was the rather interestingly placed Swan, situated next to a small green a few hundred yards off the main road. This is a very cosy establishment and although they only had IPA on beer wise, they did advertise occasional guest ales and their bar snacks were extensive.

Best bar snacks of the day were without question to be found at the Mason's Arms in North Leigh where I constructed myself a lunch platter of pickled onion, pickled egg, pork scratchings and Yorkie to accompany some Courage Best - we didn't spot London Pride until it was too late although that is hardly surprising as on first inspection the pub looked as though it were closed. In fact there were a few locals at the bar consuming pints of cider in the gloom. For some reason I liked this place as Dave and I sat in some Old Man's chairs by the fireplace. The other pub in the village is the Woodman which was far busier - and lighter inside - although we received some funny looks from the locals and the bar man was a bit dopey. Their Brakespear Regatta was however quite good and the alternatives of regular Brakespear and 6X at least showed vision. The toilet is outside. Six years ago we visited the Saddler's Arms in New Yatt and as this was before ratings had begun, I was keen to evaluate it objectively for the first time. A man in an Arsenal shirt poured us a couple of good halved of Old Speckled Hen and charged us quite a favourable price for them. I think the pub has been modernised since our last visit and it is quite light inside. Overall a pleasant if not outstanding place to drink.

We were looking forward to our visit to the Crawley Inn in Crawley to see if they had finished off the work started a few years ago, as well as to see if the same headbanger type of people were running the place and the good selection of beers was maintained. Fortunately, it was as good as it had been before with the added benefit that the paving had been finished. Once again, the beer was interesting and well priced - Vale Pale Ale and Wychwood of some description or other - and it tasted good too.

The other pub in Crawley, the Lamb, is a bit more refined and we found it hard to find a suitable spot for drinking. We had a couple of halves of Brakespear at a less competitive price and speculated that if we were coming here for a nice dinner then it would have been very pleasant. On this day however, food was not high on the list of priorities.

The Bird in Hand at Whiteoak Green is in the middle of nowhere and serves extremely expensive Brakespear Bitter and even more expensive Hen at prices tipping the £3 mark. It's quite nice though and very peaceful but other than that, nothing special. A pub that is special and well worth a return visit is the Royal Oak at Ramsden and I am pleased to report that again we found an excellent selection of beers in Hooky Gold, Youngs Bitter and the one that we both tried, Wye Valley Butty Bach which was in excellent condition. Even though it is more of a foody pub, there is still enough room for drinking should you wish to focus on this.

A little bit of a cycle took us to the magnificent Plough in Finstock which is even better than I remember it. They had (Ridleys?) BOB, Young's Bitter and Hook Norton Bitter, but even better, they had a selection of ciders and perries on and I even risked a Perry which was actually very nice and at 8% good value for money. Though the BOB was also the best tasting beer of the day. In the winter, it would be an excellent pub to settle in and have quite a few beers. The other pub in Finstock is the Crown which pleasingly did not have IPA available and instead we had Jennings Cumberland Ale although would have been quite happy with Adnam's Broadside.

Things started to go a bit wrong from here as both of the pubs in Stonesfield have ceased trading which caused much cursing in the half light. We decided to cut across country to Woodstock whereupon I suffered an obligatory puncture whilst going through the ground of Blenheim Palace. Eventually our route too us right past the palace and out a side gate and quickly to the Kings Head where I changed inner tubes whilst having some Hook Norton and Dave had some Marston Pedigree. For some reason, it didn't seem to be the pub that it had used to be. Haring down the hill too Old Woodstock, we were looking forward to the Black Prince where we had consumed some supreme ales before. Sadly it has had a makeover and the array is no longer available although St Austell Tribute is at least interesting and we lamented the passing of the wonderful selection in the trendier new seats. Even worse, the old Gent's toilet has now been removed and instead of using urinals that fed into the old trough (or using the old trough directly) they've now got a very anaemic lavatory arrangement in place which was most disappointing. As it was now 11pm, we decided to go back to the flat to catch the Championship on ITV, pausing only to stop at the kebab shop in Kidlington for some really quite foul food. In the end we got back just in time, for the drizzle that accompanied us for the last leg of our 33.9 mile trip was soon to turn into a solid rain.