2021 – Ipswich to Scotland

A post covid trip up the east side of the UK

Round the World!

Posted by on 30, May 2021 in 2021 - Ipswich to Scotland, Tandems, Tilly the Tandem, UK | 1 comment

As you will know we are hilll phobic so we changed our return route to Edinburgh to avoid the Kinross Pass and believe or not the weather was warmer and sunny too. You can get frost bite in the morning, sunburn at lunchtime and drown in the evening here and that’s a normal day. It doesn’t seem to put off the copious numbers of guys walking around in shorts though. Must be us and our wimpy nature. Today we accomplished our first virtual round the world leg having done the 40,007km to complete a RTW trip via the poles! We stopped at the side of the road with the sun shining for...

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Bonnie Scotland ????????????????????????????

Posted by on 22, May 2021 in 2021 - Ipswich to Scotland, Tilly the Tandem, UK | 1 comment

Bonnie Scotland ????????????????????????????

We crossed into Scotland having had yet another white van man moment where they come within a few inches of you as they hadn’t noticed the car coming the other way and then can’t slow down in time so squeeze past. The day was grey, the temperature lovely for early December and the wind its usual headwind. I swear if we go around roundabouts it remains a headwind and it doesn’t matter which way we turn there’s no respite. But we crossed the Scottish border and a passing Spanish cyclist hopped off her Bike and kindly took a photo of us at the future Customs control...

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County Durham

Posted by on 8, May 2021 in 2021 - Ipswich to Scotland, Tilly the Tandem, UK | 2 comments

County Durham

The hills had been performing a pincer movement ever since we left York trying to hem us in and force us to cycle over them but we had managed to avoid the worst of them until they snuck in a 17% hill just outside Stockton. We can just about peddle up a hill that steep, it’s just that we can’t stay upright as Tilly becomes a bit unstable when going less than about 3kph and we tend to wobble so much we look drunk, so we got nearly to the top and hopped off to push the last 25m before falling off. Since being ‘Up North’ our accommodation seems to have done a bit of a...

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York

Posted by on 30, Apr 2021 in 2021 - Ipswich to Scotland, Tandems, Tilly the Tandem, UK | 0 comments

York

York Minster Someone’s done the decent thing and put the Town out of their misery Entering Yorkshire from Lincolnshire for us seemed a little odd. We always think of Yorkshire as being way up north, but in fact it joins Lincolnshire just south of Goole. We cycled into Goole through “Britain’s Premier Inland Port” with all of one ship in the Dock and onto the pedestrianised High Street for a coffee stop. The weather has been great for the last day or so and the sunshine and cold had people wrapped up to the nines but happily filling the street cafes but the thing that...

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Heading North…

Posted by on 23, Apr 2021 in 2021 - Ipswich to Scotland, Tandems, Tilly the Tandem, UK | 3 comments

Heading North…

On our rest day we decided to cycle into Peterborough, sans Panniers which felt really strange as Tilly handles so much better when fully loaded than empty. It’s quite the opposite of what you’d expect, but obviously she loves touring too. Peterborough really shocked us for its cycle infrastructure. Loads of dedicated cycle paths, with adjacent pavement, flyovers and flyunders across the big roads, cycle traffic lights all very European. The city itself though was surreal with the post lockdown queues for Primark being so long we actually couldn’t see Primark anywhere, it...

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The Cambridgeshire Alps

Posted by on 17, Apr 2021 in 2021 - Ipswich to Scotland, Tandems, UK | 1 comment

The Cambridgeshire Alps

Day two started bright and sunny and we hurtled along BMW alley to get off the stretch as soon as possible and on to some quieter back roads. Mission accomplished but the worrying thing was despite us alledgely heading to Scotland the signs for London kept getting nearer… Eventually we turned North and headed over the Cambridge Castle Camps ‘Pass’. I say ‘pass’ as we are, as many will know, Hill Averse and our route somehow managed to pick the highest point in Cambridgeshire for us to traverss, all 128m of it! OK, we’re officially wimps and God knows how...

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