day 11: in words.

cornwall had been looming in my mind for months. we were never quite sure if the route we plotted would be ok. whether it was too far given the hills. whether our legs would cope after 10 days of pain.

i had miles on standby with tents and spare kit, to meet us where we passed out, so we could finish the next morning, if needed, and when i could barely walk up the stairs without my muscles screaming in fatigue yesterday morning i was very prepared to use that option.

but at 7.20 in the morning, our earliest start yet, we headed out for what turned out to be, for both of us, the best day's riding of the trip, by far.

maybe it was because we'd removed our bar bags and were riding light.

maybe it was because the sun was shining.

maybe it was because the route we ended up using turned out to have lovely tarmac and no cars for many bits, and just the right amount of shade.

maybe it was my newfound ability to plod on up hills/recover while pushing.

maybe it was because we were a bit happier to bimble along, sitting back and enjoying the views.

maybe it was just because we knew that at some point today we would get to cycle over that last hill and into lands end.

whatever it was, it was a genuinely beautiful ride and as we arrived at lands end, to a beautiful sunset over the sea, we were glad we took the route that was 'downhill all the way'

saturday's data: 

92.3 miles, with 7,664ft of ascent, in 8h 22m 04s at an average speed of 11mph.

overall, and i can't even believe how perfectly it adds up, and depending on how accurate you believe strava to be, we have ridden 1000.0 miles. 1,609.3 kilometres

which leaves me with one more plug for justgiving.com/embatt, lets get that total up to £1609.3, a pound for each and every kilometre we've travelled from one end of the country to the other.

and now i'm going to go back to the world of pain that my body has now realised it's allowed to acknowledge.

day 11: done!

they say a picture says a thousand words...

but word will follow tomorrow.

for now we're happy, well fed and sleepy.

day 9 & 10: almost there!

firstly apologies to anyone who was concerned by the lack of post yesterday, it was a long hard day, and when we finished, we again had the joy of good company and exhaustion which kept me from posting.

yesterday started well with our friend clare joining us from hereford to bristol. a lovely ride down the wye valley was followed by crossing back into england...

a huge late lunch...

and a bit of grommit spotting:

it was tough to get psyched for the climb over mendips following that, and there may have been tears, stern words from emma and pushing bikes up very steep hills, but we got there! albeit under a beautiful sunset:

today was a great start, with dan and tom taking the lead all the way to exeter, meaning no navigation issues and less impact from the headwind. 

they left us in good spirits to catch a train home, while we headed up onto dartmoor. i got a bit better at plodding up hills over the course of the afternoon, which was nice, but all too quickly dartmoor started dartmoor-ing on us so, soaked and tired, at Princeton...

 

we made the call to head straight for home rather than taking the more scenic plym valley trail. so with the majority of gradients (though by no means all) in our favour we wizzed into plymouth.

which leaves us with one, very hilly, but hopefully quite scenic, day to go. which feels odd!

yesterday:

101.5 miles with 6,534ft of ascent in 7h 47m 56s at an average speed of 13.0mph

today:

100.9 miles with 6,191ft of ascent in 7h 43m 40s at an average speed of 13.1mph

day 8: bleugh

today was hard. the tiredness seemed to have added up and my legs just didn't want to work.

the small reward was the sun as we headed into leominster to our bed for the night:

that bed is where i'm headed now in te hopes that tomorrow won't be quite as tough.

if you'd like to sponser this ridiculous mission the link again is: justgiving.com/embatt

we've raised £1000 so far for latch, lets see if we can make it £1600...£1 for each km we're riding.

today's data: 

99.6 miles

3,410ft of ascent (lots less than it felt)

7h 01m 43s peddling time

14.2mph average speed (quicker than it felt!)

day 7: thank you a6!

we starte of today by throwing caution to the wind and heading in a different direction to our planned route. on the advice of people at the hostel we abandoned the long slog up a very fast a road to kendal and took NCN 68 into sedburgh instead.

the route started well with us cycling down the middle of the m6:

on a lovely little lane between the split carriage ways near tebay.

it then turned a little hillier than expected (we were told there'd be barely any climbing on this route, but that was by people that live in cumbria) and given that we'd set off with no breakfast, we were glad of an early stop in sedburgh.

form there, once stocked up on tubular bandages for the knees, it was on to kirkby lonsdale then lancaster on the a roads.

this is where the a roads began to win me over.

a pretty cycle, if a little rougher than ideal at times, round the river lune, as opposed to going straight through lancaster, found me very ready for lunch. this idea however was not supported by the local pub we had spotted on the map for lunch, which had decided to close.

here, the a6 came to the rescue, taking us to somewhere happy to provide lovely big sandwiches. 

refuelled, but disillusioned by the small roads of the morning, and having added quite a few miles by straying from the plan, we decided that we'd risk the a6, possibly all the way to preston.

it was a fast road, but luckily much of the way provided cycle lanes meaning it could be fast for us too, without being too scary with cars.

we quickly got back on schedule as the a49 and then a573 obliged in much the same way. then, with an afternoon coffee to perk me up, it was smooth riding all the way to Warrington.

it kept striking me today how much more tricky it is to get the good photos while cycling, and just how big and open much of the scenery is, making it tricky to capture even if we do stop. so appologies that the pictures are lacking this year.

as my eyes are closing as I type I am going to publish now, sorry if it's not made much sense, I'm too tired to proof read! 

today's data:

102.4 miles travelled

3,294ft of ascent

7h 14m 23s peddling

14.3mph average speed (!)

day 6: half way!

today started off with us riding pretty close to motorways, on ncn 74. 

we had been led to believe that this was the most terrible cycle way known to road bikes, fortunately though, it was definately bearable.

unfortunately my knee suddenly decided that while 5 days of cycling were all good, a sixth is pushing it. but push it i did, all the way down the old a74 (now b7076).

our days have started to fall into a bit of a rhythm now. cycle, tea/coffee/cake stop, cycle, lunch stop, cycle, pub stop, cycle, bed. 

this morning the coffee stop came by way of a motorway services. we felt a little out of place as we put our feet up and enjoyed our costa.

we carried on through lockerbie to gretna green, where, after the obligatory tourist shots with wedding chapels...

we headed to an outlet mall for lunch...again, not the most natural environment for our bikes:

then it was into england (more sign photography) to pick up some lovely cycle routes again (ncn 7) all the way through carlisle to penrith.

in penrith we found another lovely pub (it's name escapes me) and had a nice rest before the final climbs of the day, that very much disagreed with my knee, into shap.

it was mostly a lovely day, with the sun shining, and nice fun b roads, that finds us half way through our planned route.

there have been many times that i'm amazed that i've made it this far. and i'm a little scared that my knee seems to think it's had enough, but i'll keep soldiering on because for most of the day i'm having a lot of fun riding.

today's data

96.2 miles

3,407ft of ascent

7h 00m 53s peddling time

13.7mph average speed

day 5: dr beeching...

i've often been heard joining the crowds in talking about the atrocities of dr beeching's line closures.

today i found myself strangely grateful for them. see, the thing is that trains like to run fairly straight and fairly flat, and this makes old lines perfect candidates when sustrans are looking to put nice new tarmac down for cyclists.

we started off (with about -10 seconds to spare) catching a ferry from dunnoon this morning:

and with the sun shining, set off around the coast to largs, with stunning views of aaron ever present on the now bizzarly flat horizon:

from ardrosan we picked up ncn 73 which took us, mostly on that beautiful smooth tarmac you're probably starting to get fed up of hearing about, on some of those old railway lines I mentioned, all the way to kilmarnock where I actually ate a full meal for lunch (something i've so far been to scared to do because it often makes me feel icky, it didn't make me feel icky today.)

from there it was undulating b roads most of the way to abington, scotland's highest village, apparently.

it was actually quite fun having regular changes in gradients to play on, though by the time we reached the slog that is ncn 74 i think i was certainly ready for old railway lines again. but at least the was a pretty/atmospheric sky...

today's data:

94.4 miles

5107ft (?) of ascent

7h 04m 10s peddling/ferry time

13.4mph (?) average speed - strava is having a moment but I think it was something like this...