Category: Rhyming Coast to Coasts

Another wind-assisted day, from Rutland’s rolling hills to south Lincs’s pancake flatness: Oakham for elevenses, Stamford for lunch, Spalding for dinner. This bloke outside Oakham (above) was ‘walking’ his dog in the laziest way possible: not just doing it on his bike, but with that conveyor-belt tailwind, meaning he didn’t even have to pedal. The…

East out of Stafford town centre this morning. Luckily there was a nice wide cycle track on the pavement (below). For today’s ride, Mark came up with several recommendations for things to investigate en route. They were all spot on, a slideshow of charming Middle Englishness: thatchy villages (Abbots Bromley, Newtown Linford), picturesque forest lanes…

A day of unmremitting feathery drizzle and cloud, which was just as well, as there’s little scenic interest between Oswestry and Stafford. In fact, the only thing of note above my head all day has been the magnificent vaulted art-nouveau ceiling of Stafford Wetherspoons, an old picture house (above). The chief points of interest today…

I did two of Wales’s biggest passes this morning: Bwlch Oerddrws and Bwlch y Groes, both of which sound like someone being sick, which is appropriate. I don’t know how high Bwlch Oerddrws (above) goes, because the Wikipedia page suddenly switched from English into Welsh when it knew I was reading it. Bwlch y Groes…

[This was my second go at riding from Barmouth to Yarmouth. My previous attempt, in August 2010, was aborted when rain stopped play at Shrewsbury.] So here we go again. After four changes of train from York, I rolled into Barmouth at noon today. The weather wasn’t promising: low cloud meant nothing was visible, not…

From Newark up to Goole was a flat trundle alongside the Trent. Pleasant cycling on a warm morning, but the Danube it’s not. The Trent valley consists largely of power stations – you keep expecting the Super Mario Brothers to pop up out of the cooling towers – relieved by the odd high-security mental institution….

A long hot haul up the Fosse Way today. Unfortunately, the speed I cycle, I couldn’t even get this ford to splash me with cool water. Ab Kettleby is a nondescript little village near Melton Mowbray. But it’s Britain’s top village – alphabetically – thanks to the way computers sort their gazetteers. Staying at a…

After living there a dozen years, but leaving in 1999, it was funny being in Bath for a night again. Half the shops I knew had gone, replaced by chainstores or upmarket shopping courts. Rather like meeting an old partner who has now married someone richer and more successful, who is very polite, but has…

Set off from Poole at 9.30ish, having taken a ludicrously early train from Waterloo. At Wimborne I dropped in on the Model Town. This is a one-tenth replica of the town as it was in the 1950s. You can walk up the streets and lanes and imagine being sixty feet tall. The shops have little…