Ride all the OS mapsYesterday was 102 miles of cycling in the sun, and today looked like being slightly more. I had a deadline of sorts: I was due to visit a long lost cousin in deepest Suffolk, and I wanted to arrive at a civilised hour in time for dinner and spend some time together. So I told […]
The magic spinner span, and this time it chose the straight line to the Suffolk coast, heading ESE just over two hundred miles to, well, Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station! There is a lovely beach there, too, however, with a cafe and everything; so let’s just call it Sizewell and be done with it. It’s […]
With some reluctance I left Salisbury behind after a quick Pret breakfast in its impressively large and almost completely empty market square. It was a sunny day, a good one to be out on a bike. I had a 30 mile ride to complete, and a train back to London, where I would ride across […]
I awoke to sunshine in the upper Thames valley and decided that I was still too full from last night’s sumptuous pub meal to justify their breakfast as well. It needed riding off for an hour or two. I was otherwise running to a roughly Tamworth schedule, which meant I should actually be slightly ahead […]
I awoke in my Tamworth pub room to a grey, drizzly morning. Not what I ordered. The day was due to improve, but not yet. I didn’t really fancy getting wet if I could help it. So I faffed around and took my time leaving, and then made it just a few doors down the […]
The magic spinner sent me south on a day of strong winds from the west. It wasn’t a good idea to be out on a bike during the latter stages of Storm Lilian, but by lunchtime things had died down a bit. The roads were covered in bits of tree that had fallen in the […]
Sunday morning in Belfast was a quiet time to be leaving the city. I was a little short on sleep but it was a beautiful day and I had a chance to see and spend a whole day somewhere I had never been before. My straight line WNW ran directly between the province’s two largest […]
After a smooth boat journey from Liverpool, we arrived in Douglas, capital of the Isle of Man, quite late in the evening. The ferry terminal is at the southern end of the huge sweep of promenade that follows the shore of Douglas Bay. It is lined with an almost uninterrupted terrace of tall, elegant white […]
I was back in Manchester, an hour from home on a regular train that stops in my village. My goal today was the Isle of Man. But not the easy way. I was intent on cycling along my WNW line to the Ribble estuary, and then dropping south to Southport, from where there are regular […]
When the spinner sent me WNW, I knew it would be a tricky business. My straight line sent me over the highest hills of the Peak District and then through the Manchester conurbation, close to the city centre and out on the other side, via large industrial towns, to somewhere on the south side of […]