Category: Rhyming Coast to Coasts

The final leg was another stretch I’ve cycled many times. From Ferriby I followed the Trans Pennine Trail alongside the Humber (picture). There’s still a sign up claiming the route is ‘closed to cyclists’, even though it reopened weeks ago. Being an experienced touring cyclist, I always read such signs carefully. And then ignore them….

York looked lovely, on the hottest, most beautiful day of the year. The Millennium Bridge (picture) was busy with the city’s everyday cyclists shuttling across the Ouse to Rowntree Park. If they were hoping to play table tennis at the park’s free-access table they were to be disappointed, because we were using it. I rode…

Back home to York – a service stop for changing socks, offloading camping gear, eating curry etc – so a short day. In fact, all today’s highlights were in Knaresborough, traditional home of 16th-century prophetess Mother Shipton (picture). One of her lesser known predictions, clearly foreseeing the coming of the Tour, runs “…On iron wheels…

A sociable day of beautiful but hilly stuff in and around Wharfedale (picture). I was relieved I’d put new brake blocks on back in Penrith. Much of the cycling was an uphill struggle. The socialising in cafes (picture, Kettlewell) certainly wasn’t. In fact, a combination of pushing up 1 in 5s, stopping constantly to take…

I followed quiet, rolling back lanes in the morning from Penrith to Kirkby Stephen, in the shadow of the Pennines. Some of the roads were surprisingly busy with traffic (picture). That’s rush hour just outside Appleby… Handsome Appleby is just about to play host to its famous annual horse fair, when lots of travellers come…

A rest day in Penrith today, sitting out indifferent weather and doing service-town admin such as haircuts. The hostel (Wayfarers Penrith) is excellent, and possibly the best for cyclists I’ve ever stayed at – it’s aimed at Coast to Coast groups. It has a fine bikeshed-cum-workshop in the basement (picture), with workstand and tools and…

A very early start – I had taken down the tent and was out from the campsite in Moffat by 6am – so that I wouldn’t have to lay in bed being disturbed by early risers taking down their tents. Sound travels in campsites. I had breakfast at Lockerbie, where I was not impressed by…

I left Ayr without further investigation. I’d done all the jokes about Robert Burns and John McAdam I could think of last year, when I passed through on my multiple End to End trip. Today was always going to be a bit of a slog, east across from Ayr to the old A74, and then…

A short day today – a measly forty miles – thanks to rain. And laziness. From Lochranza it was a long slow climb up Glen Chalmadale (picture) before a short fast descent down the other side to a few miles of lovely waterside cycling. The road was often unfenced right over the water’s edge, so…

Another day of endlessly beautiful lochside cycling in fine weather. Plus a deer, a seal, a canal, the smallest ‘bar’ in the world, and a bizarre place name. I started cycling up the Crinan Canal towpath to Crinan, where it opens into the sea (picture). It’s a playground for deer: I saw one on the…