Ride all the OS mapsReturning by train to Newtown in fine weather, I set out for the final two days of this leg of my adventure. I had missed only rain and instead attended a Crowded House concert in Manchester and a band rehearsal at home. By lunchtime on Thursday I was back in Wales and cycling along quiet […]
It must have rained an awful lot overnight, because the roads were covered in big puddles; but the morning brought with it warm sunshine. Really warm, in fact, so you wanted sun cream on. I was quickly down to shorts and shirt sleeves and enjoyed the bonus summer weather. I had a relatively easy day ahead […]
While the rain fell in the north west of Scotland, things further south were much brighter. Indeed, the weather in Hathersage the morning after my grey and grim push through bleak Lanarkshire was positively cheerful, if a tad brisk early in the morning. Nevertheless, an early start was in order to make the most of […]
Thanks to the delay in my rail journey north to Scotland, I now had a piece missing from my NW Cardinal Spin. I have experienced a couple of minor breaks before, one in Scotland and one in Cornwall, that I have gone back and fixed when I had the chance. Now, today, was my opportunity […]
The sun was glittering off the surface of Loch Fyne as I left my lovely BnB in Inveraray this morning. I had eaten a fine breakfast (a photo of which had partly influenced my booking decision!) and I was ready for a ride of approaching 40 miles to Oban, the main town and ferry port […]
The long distance cardinally challenged adventure cyclist has to be ready to react in the face of the unexpected and the inconvenient. I took a train from Hathersage at 7.32am on Tuesday believing I would be cycling in Scotland before noon, but fate had other ideas. I was well on the way, a few miles […]
The amazing weather of the last two days was not done yet. Today – my final cycling day before I headed off to Montenegro on holiday – was another day of perfect weather, and I once again enjoyed some exceptional riding to go with it. I had Lockerbie in southern Scotland as my destination today, […]
The Yorkshire Dales is one of my favourite parts of England, and today I would have the chance to cycle through it in perfect weather, and along the tiniest of traffic-free roads. And then, to add to the fun, I would ride all the way along the flanks of the beautiful Howgills range of hills […]
My straight line NW is a long one and it crosses two stretches of water in the Hebrides to end at Huisnis on Harris, a long way from home in every sense. There is a real chance it will be difficult to get there in half decent weather this late in the summer, so the […]
After three months I was finally a day away from reaching the end of the Lizard Peninsula, Britain’s most south westerly point, and – coincidentally – lying at the end of a straight line south west from my home. What are the chances? To get there, I planned to follow my line along the indented […]