Category: Cardinal Spins

Chester was a great diversion for a day’s entertainment and history lesson. It is Britain’s only completely walled city where you can walk around the whole 2.2 miles uninterrupted. Even York, which has slightly longer city walls, has a section missing. This perambulation gives you a great view of the Roman street layout from above, […]

The magic spinner landed on west, so west I must go. Which was a stroke of luck, because Sunday was not only a beautiful, sunny day; but also provided a rare easterly wind that I could use to propel me towards Chester from Hathersage. An opportunity not to miss! It is a journey of about […]

Helmsley has to be one of my favourite little towns anywhere. It’s just delightful. I can’t really find anything not to like. It has a fine market place, with a splendid market cross surrounded by handsome inns, cafes and shops all built from the local honey-coloured stone. Everything is just a short walk away: the […]

The train whisked me back from home to Barnsley on a somewhat greyer, cloudier day than yesterday’s bright sunshine; but still warm and breezy in a way that would help me ride NNE. So far in this cycling adventure, you just can’t fault the magic spinner for its choice of direction. Incredible luck, really! I […]

I went to Barnsley today and I liked it. Not just Barnsley, but the whole ride there from home. It took under three hours, and only an hour and a quarter to get home again by train. So why, I have to ask myself, have I never been there before? I have spent a large […]

It was a little cooler and cloudier today than yesterday’s bright sunshine; but still a great day for riding a bicycle to the coast. Especially since the warm breeze, which was not inconsiderable, had chosen to go the same way as me today. That always helps. I made my way up from the lower part […]

Having sent me on the longest unbroken straight line I can draw from my centrally located home, it was perhaps fitting that the magic spinner should next send me out along the very shortest of my cardinal spokes. Since I go where the spinner sends me, it was now my duty and pleasure to ride […]

The Durness Highland Gathering is a big deal in the far north-west of Scotland. For a weekend it takes precedence for the local population and over certain other matters. Like, for example, the Cape Wrath ferry. We weren’t to know. There was no information to tip off even the most well organised of cycling groups, […]

The Achness Hotel is in a remote part of northern Scotland, even by Scottish standards. It is inland from the coast in the tiny village of Rosehall, on a road that takes almost no traffic. It lies about ten miles from Lairg, the “Crossroads of the North”, which itself is little more than a junction […]

I wanted a decent start from Aviemore today, because I had much to achieve. Predictably enough, I slept through all the early morning activity in my YHA dormitory and woke only at 8.30am. Once again, I was playing catch up from the start. I was obviously making up in part for the miles I let […]