Ludlow to Whitchurch - in Top Gear

How easy is it to get from one end of Shropshire to the other, and how much does it cost? Three writers set off on a Top Gear-style challenge to find out.

The AA reckon it's 48.8 miles from Ludlow to Whitchurch. Motorists observing the speed limit should need no more than 68 minutes to get from A to B, or, in this case, L to W.

The train companies reckon they can get you there more quickly. A journey can take as little as 50 minutes. Such speedy connections, of course, are by no means guaranteed. The same journey can take 88 minutes, if you travel at the wrong time of the day. Naturally, if there are leaves on the line, the wrong type of snow or summary other delays, it could be days before you reach your destination.

In true Top Gear style, we decided to see which is really the best. Road or rail? Feature writer Ben Bentley was our James May, a suave and discerning traveller. We put him on the train, so that he could enjoy a cup of tea and a biscuit, while travelling.

Our Hamster was James Shaw, an irascible devil-may-care character with a love of fried food. It was a risky strategy, putting him in the car. We feared he'd spoil our experiment by stopping off to snack at transport cafes.

Which, of course, left us short of a Clarkson. Gamely, I was volunteered and, given that the road and rail options had already gone, I was told to dust down my bike. Marvellous. Clarkson never has to do this.

So, to summarise, Mr B had got a 3,000 horsepower train, with buffet car, the Shawmeister had got around 100 in his dirty old Megane, and I'd got about less than the back end of a horse, in the form of my trusty roadbike.

Back at the office, our business editor started a book. "I'll take 10/11 on for Shaw, 5/8 for Mr B and, well..." she laughed. "Richo's a rank outsider. 100/1 and he's yours."

The day of our challenge arrived. Mr Bentley donned his gentleman's travelling cravat, Mr Shaw dressed in leather and denim and I squeezed into the type of garment that creates the illusion of incontinence.

Arriving in Ludlow, we opened a Golden Envelope. "There's a twist," it said. "Rather than James travelling along the A roads, and arriving in Whitchurch two hours ahead of the others, he should travel via B and C roads." James dutifully agreed though, sadly, he had not been carrying a map in his car. "Oh well," he said. "I'll be fine." Playing field level, we set off in pursuit of Whitchurch.

I was first off, cycling at a steady pace in pursuit of north Shropshire. Ben and James were chatting casually on the car park as I wheeled away, so casually, in fact, than Ben missed his train.

When his journey started an hour later, he met a man wearing two hats who said he'd worn a painted-on smile since the age of 10. Ben said: "You sure meet some interesting folk on the choo-choos – some of them too interesting really."

He spent his spare hour shopping in Ludlow and added: "There was nothing else for it. It was the best train journey I'd never had."

Ben's second attempt got him out of Ludlow at 10.19am and, as the only one in the challenge who had the luxury of being a passenger, he let the train take the strain.

Ben said: "I got talking to some nice German people and became entangled in a series of polite misunderstandings that were eventually resolved by the man in charge of tea and cakes on the buffet trolley.

"Craven Arms and Church Stretton hurtled by and the Shropshire Hills flashed its bits of outstanding natural beauty at me. I arrived in Shrewsbury at 10.50am, full of it.... only to find there was now no connection to Whitchurch until 12.26pm, which left me with more than an hour and a half's worth of twiddling my thumbs. So, not for the first time, I went shopping.

"I received a text from James saying he was stuck in Shawbirch (heartening) and that Andy had texted him to say he was almost home. Yikes on a bike!

"So I got the connecting Whitchurch train like a shot, only to meet more interesting people. Like the aforementioned hat chap who, observing the cows from the carriage window, told me how he sometimes wished he was one of them.

"My stress levels were soon so low again that at 12.52pm, as my train pulled in to Whitchurch station, I really didn't care if was home first or last."

But back to the bike. I was gliding along at a steady 17mph to 18mph, soon reaching Shrewsbury before pushing further north.

I arrived two hours and 44 minutes after setting off, expecting to see Ben and James. Ben, it transpired, was still on the train while James was mired in Shropshire's own Bermuda Triangle.

James explained: "I followed the challenge, making good ground until I got stuck near the A53. I drove round and round and round, trying to find a way of avoiding it. I couldn't. In the end I had to give up." A stressed-looking James, therefore, was disqualified as he arrived via the A roads.

Eventually, we reached our destination. And what did we learn? Well, firstly, Aesop was right. The tortoise always beats the hare. Secondly, there were no winners or losers.

While my journey was the cheapest and quickest, I had no time to enjoy the scenery. James, meanwhile, would clearly have been at Whitchurch first, had he been allowed on the open road.

Ben, finally, was the least stressed and most invigorated of us all. He spent as much on rail fares as James did on fuel, enjoyed the scenery and ready to go again when he pulled into Whitchurch.

Oh, there was another lesson learned.

The guys on Top Gear have it far too easy. They don't have to use a bike.

By Andy Richardson