Long-time readers will remember that last summer, in order to see if I was physically capable of cycling day after day on a long journey by bike, I decided to cycle along the Pennine Cycleway from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Derby. It took me nine days and I stayed in a series of hostels along the way. It was great! Not only was I able to prove to myself that I could physically do it, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was so nice to rediscover the north of England where I was born and brought up.

A chap called Darrell from Manchester has been in contact this week after having found my blog posts made during last summer’s trip. He is planning on doing something similar in July and explains his motivation as follows;

I want to make the journey as much… an expedition as possible…. partly for the freedom of going as far as I want each day…. partly to try out the bike and kit set up in preparation for more remote trips and partly just to play the role of the adventurer.

I know how he feels! These are almost identical reasons as to why I cycled Route 68 (the Pennine Cycleway) last year.

Darrell has an interesting blog of his own called “Middle Age Cyclist; the ramblings of a commuter cyclist (and wannabee cycle tourer)“.  🙂

The networking aspect of this blog is so good; Helen from New Zealand was in contact last week only hours after Tricia, another New Zealander had been in contact. Helen is planning to cycle the Eurovelo 5 route in 2011 and Tricia cycled the Via Francigena in 2009. I put the two in contact and Helen has now emailed the following;

Thanks for that… We have been in touch, its one of those small world things, 2 degrees of separation as it often is in little old NZ..so we will be meeting up and swapping tales and advice.
Thanks
PS will be following your progress with much interest. It’s a fun site !

Move over Facebook; here comes Eurovelo5.com !