apatkinson

Stopped for lunch already in. Carlisle, England. Yay

So it looks nice and sunny outside. That is good. However it is 10 o’clock and we have not moved anywhere yet. We still need to make the decision wheather to make the route shorter by visiting Hadrian’s wall or not. I better start, repackage everything it is then.

View the route: http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/9554106

The day started looking gloomy and the weather report forecast rain moving south. We decided we could probably beat the rain to langholm if we didn’t hang around. The sky looked gloomy all day and it tried to rain quite alot with my glasses having rain spots for most of the day. The roads once out of Edinburgh. We managed to take a few short cuts on some very nice roads running next to a river with rolling hills in the background and very very few cars. That said, once we were literally in the middle of nowhere the main A7 road from Edinburgh was fairly quiet.

Sitting down on the saddle is now a delicate manoeuvre. Sitting down too quickly makes me take a sharp breath inward. My poor little bum!

With 20 miles to go it tried to rain… and succeeded. The last 20 miles were quite possibly the most uncomfortable miles so far. I was slowly getting soaked to the bone with lorries and busses contributing large walls of spray in my direction. I decided to gun it to keep myself warm, or my legs at least. My arms and hands became numb and slightly painful.

We did it though, not too pleasent but all the same we are here. Attempting to dry everything on hangers. Also no video or pictures were taken because of the rain.

I think it is Takeaway as we have no clothes or shoes that are dry. Goodnight

After a small breakfast and light luggage we follow directions from an old man on a bike to a post office for lunch.

Just a quick note, today is going to be hard as we race the rain and ride on the already wet roads. I think motivation will be questioned a little, and its now I wish we were a bigger group. We are already an hour behind schedule.

Edinburgh. the ride ewas slightly longer than expected thanks to the amazing planning skills of the sustrans national cycle network that actually sent us in a loop at one point. We also have video evidence of the route actually sending us UP some stairs!
We left the route behind as it seemed to go in the wrong direction most of the time, for it only to reappear infront of us again.

We (I) had haggis and we both had a battered mars bar, not that bad, which surprised us both.

Check out the route here:
Day 1 route with no autopause on endomondo

And check the random pictures here:

Arrived at the station on time. However I’m sure the taxi driver had a shock when the van infront doors opened at the lights. But then to MY surprise the van jerked forward almost throwing me out and onto said taxi.

Bikes all strapped up and we settle in for long haul all the way to Edinburgh. Managed to ‘swap’ our reserved seats with a couple, even though they do not know the seat or carriage numbers train getting pretty full as we approach Adrian country (Manchester).

Feast your eyes on this delightful man beast

lying on my bed. up in 5 hours… i think we have packed everything. my bike weighs enough anyway!
hussein has packed the least anyone could ever take for 5 days cycling. I don’t know what he has put in there, i really dont, i have 3 times the stuff!

Will be keeping a video diary of the trip hopefully, will have to edit and upload that afterwards, but i can take photos with my phone and upload direct to the blog, will keep this category updated. so stay tuned. Oh and if you have latitude, you can track me or hussein on there.

here we come Scotland

The night before, have mounted the panniers, raised the seat, positioned rear lights. I need to make some slight changes to the bags as I don’t want them in the disc or the rear mech. Will have an update of the ride tomorrow.

UPDATE: Anyway we finished the ride and you can view the ride on endomondo

As Part of the training, we are cycling from the midlands to just north of london.

We shall cover approx 80miles and we will definatly be able to see if we can complete a day in the saddle at least.

Bikes will be almost cycle tour complete to get used to the weight and different style of riding. This is an ideal opportunity to see if we need to change anything on the bikes. I am especially interested to see if i wish to purchase bar ends before the big tour.

There is also an option to ride this both ways across the weekend. I will see how I feel after the one day before I trek out for another 80mile trek

Route included below.

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