As August turns into Winter, we’re off again…
After having finished the Lands End to London cycle we had decided that we really needed to do the Edinburgh to John O Groats bit to complete a very circuitous LEJOG, so here we are off again to London to get the Azuma train up to Edinburgh. We thought August would be about as warm as it gets in Scotland so sitting in Taffy the night before departure and thinking we need to put the heating on made us consider packing our thermals, just in case. We held firm in the end and I’m sure we’ll live to regret that on the Hebrides as we head to JOG. Hebrides? Yep, in true Reed fashion we...
Read MoreUh oh….
We left Bristol on the old Bath Railway, a gentle incline for 7km followed by a lovely roll down toward Bath and the Kennet and Avon Canal which would be our companion until we reached Reading. We’d booked two nights in the servant quarters in a Georgian mansion and had to get Tilly down a flight of stairs into the basement courtyard to store her in the cellar under the road. Bath is quite hilly and we surprisingly then went down another flight of stairs to our rooms for 2 nights. We love Bath, it’s a majestic city with a great pedestrianised centre and loads of bars and...
Read MoreTilly can’t cope…
Tilly has been making a decidedly unhealthy sounding clunks when we hit pot holes and bump up on kerbs. I’d tried tightening the headset but it made no difference and we stopped in Bodmin at a bike shop for advice. The guy there took the front fork out and said our bearings had gone meaning that the fork was loose so banged when we hit things. It wasn’t dangerous but needed a new headset fitting when we got the chance, but he said we’d be lucky to find one as there are no bicycle parts anywhere. Don’t mention Brexit… So, when we arrived in Exeter we cycled to...
Read MoreHave you got that the right way up?
I spend a lot of time planning our routes and we alway try to stay off the bigger roads, avoid the hills (obviously) and stick to the quiet back lanes. Generally (though I say it myself) I’m pretty good at it now and it pays off in the form of lovely quiet days cycling. Cornwall has been quite a challenge though and you’re often stuck sticking to the main marked cycle routes due to a combination of lack of suitable roads and hills. Our cycle out of Bude to Okehampton was our longest cycle with the highest climbing of just under 1000m and I’d poured over routes to try to...
Read MoreBring on the hills!
We arrived in Penzance at 8am having both had a poor night’s sleep. I have to stress this wasn’t due to the cabin, which was really nice. High quality bedlinen, nicely finished and quite well insulated from the train noise. We just had one of those nights when you can’t sleep. Nothing to do with the 3 bottles of Prosecco in the train bar before retiring you understand. (they were the tiny bottles) After collecting Tilly we had showers in the first class lounge which were like a 5 star hotel, very very nice and then set off for a cycle along the coastal cycle route to St...
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