Cycling over the previous few days has felt like the Argentinian economy: either soaring up or plummeting down, and with perpetual U-turns. But today Normal Cycle Touring Service was resumed: unremarkable but agreeable back-lanes cycling through undulating countryside. It was south Devon, but could have been anywhere in England. At Broadhembury, a pleasant thatchy village…
Author: Rob Ainsley
L2T 1: Lynmouth to Tiverton Parkway
A glorious mixture of cycling today, starting with the punishing climb from Lynmouth to Lynton (above). The historic funicular (a Latin-derived adjective meaning ‘very expensive’) railway whisks you and bike up the cliff in two minutes for £5.30, which makes it slightly cheaper per second than Cross Country trains. Several hours of lovely moors cycling…
L2T 0: Lynmouth
We (me and Nigel) have arrived in Lynmouth, on the north Devon coast, to start the Lynmouth to Teignmouth rhyming Coast to Coast tomorrow. We got here by cycling from Plymouth to Ilfracombe along the Sustrans Devon Coast to Coast route. And then by pushing from Ilfracombe to Lynmouth, thanks to north Devon’s boom-and-bust ups…
Middlesbrough: Playing bridge
Middlesbrough, Yorkshire’s northernmost industrial town, is home to an iconic Transporter Bridge (pic) – one of only eight or so in the world still operating. It’s quite a metaphor for the area, and possibly for me: heavy, old-tech, struggling to grind on into the 21st century. Transporter Bridges were constructed around the turn of the…
Hadrian 3: Once Brewed to Newcastle
An inspiring view for the otherwise misty, blurred morning. We went out just after 7am, walking up to the ridge to see the chunky bits of the Wall and the sweeping views. Stoked up by a hostel breakfast we rode off to Vindolanda, which turned out to be closed, so hacked back along narrow lanes…
Hadrian 2: Carlisle to Once Brewed
Another grey, mild morning as we slip quietly through the morning park east. A local man with a dog told us how high the floods of 2000 were: right up here, he said, his arm at head-height. Quiet backroads and lanes led, with a few hills, to Brampton. We sat out some light patchy drizzle…
Hadrian 1: Bowness to Carlisle
Bowness-on-Solway – to distinguish it from the one on Windermere not far away in the Lakes – is the beginning of Hadrian’s Cycleway, the bike route that nominally follows the famous Roman wall across north England from here to Newcastle. The ceremonial start is here, at this bus shelt… er, grand pavilion. We’d arrived here…
Reivers 3: Kielder to Carlisle
Having retrieved our bikes from the hostel shed – from a pile of 14 or so – we headed back south along the lakeside and on to National Cycle Route 10, ie a gravelly track, for 13 miles, across remote moorland to Newcastleton. This stretch west of the Water feels remote: a very few practical…
Reivers 2: Bellingham to Kielder
A short day today – just as well, after last night’s beer and wine and Radio 3; that Wagner must have given me a fuzzy head – with our destination Kielder and its hostel just 20 grey, damp but easy miles up the road. Kielder – originally built for workers constructing the reservoir, Britain’s most…
Reivers 1: Newcastle to Bellingham
With my friend Tim I’m doing a double Coast to Coast: the Reivers Route from Newcastle cross-country to Carlisle, returning back to Newcastle by Hadrian’s Cycleway. We had a convivial evening with Tim’s friends in an Ouseburn pub followed by a cosy Travelodge room with four occupants: Tim, me, and our bikes – his ancient…