Anything that followed yesterday morning’s bucolic ride through the Lune Valley / Forest of Bowland was always going to come second in the rankings, especially when there are so far only two contenders for ‘morning of the trip’ ride. That said, it was still a good one. A short ride from the campsite in Horton-in-Ribblesdale (very highly recommended) to Settle (where the service and food at the Singing Kettle Café and the fact that it was open at 9am on a Sunday morning also deserve placing in Cycling Europe’s ‘highly recommended’ category).
So here I am in Morecambe. I’ve pedalled just over 30km but made zero progress along the route of The Way of the Roses. However, this was never part of the plan for day 1 of this trip. Train to Morecambe, explore Morecambe, pitch tent at campsite near Morecambe. In a nutshell, that’s what happened.
I think it’s fair to say that the Northern Trains service from Leeds to Morecambe isn’t one of the operators premium routes. I’m currently standing next to a bin in the area reserved for bicycles. Wanda, my bike is under careful observation as she is jolted from side to side in perfect synchronisation with the movement of the carriage. There is no warning of when a jolt might fling the poor bicycle from its resting place in the direction of the toilet just opposite. I am posed to pounce if needs be…
Before heading off to the continent in early July, I’d like to take the bike out for a shortish camping trip over three or four days. So, following on from the discussion I was having with myself a few weeks ago regarding completing one of the coast-to-coast cycling routes here in northern England, I’ve decided to take the train over to Morecambe in Lancashire and cycle east along the Way of the Roses from Lancaster to York. I may continue as far as Flamborough (the end of the route) but we’ll see how that goes at the time. As far as York will be planned, anything after York unplanned.
Well… while you were watching all those videos in the previous post (no?) , I was out on a Bike Called Wanda knocking off nearly 50km on a nice ride with a friend along the valley to Hebden Bridge and then a return home via The Piece Hall […]
Remember the ‘lockdown project’? It seemed that most people had one; tiling the bathroom, writing an anthology of poetry, organising a series of parties that you would later deny were actually parties to the UK parliament (and even if they were, you had nothing to do with them…). That kind of thing. My lockdown project was to make an audio documentary about the life and times of Maximilian J. St. George. (I’ll post the link below.) Well, Easter has just finished and I had an ‘Easter Project’ (you heard it here first)…
Social media can be a force for good but it is, all too frequently, an opportunity for the ill-informed to broadcast their thoughts to the world. Here is the transcript of a cycling-themed conversation that took place yesterday evening on Facebook. The original comment was posted to my personal Facebook page but the construction company was tagged in the post allowing people other than ‘friends’ to see it and comment upon it, as Paul T and Paul M did. I have tidied up the punctuation, but not the syntax of the comments made by Paul T. You may have to read his comments a few times before you actually understand the point he is attempting (and usually failing) to make. I have removed the name of the construction company to save their blushes… Brace yourself; we are going in!
It would be good to head off somewhere on Wanda – perhaps for a few days to get me back into the swing of cycle touring. But to where? Well, people frequently mention the various ‘coast to coast’ routes that link the east and west coasts of England and perhaps it’s time to attempt one of them. After all, I live not far from most of them and it wouldn’t be much of a logistical issue to join one of them, either at one of their extremities or, indeed at a point in the middle. So what are the routes?
