Bike trip – Bristol to Aberdeen panic and preperations

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 14/10/08 at 05:10:00 pm

Bike trip

I am starting to get rather nervous about the bike trip from here (Bristol) to Aberdeenshire, it seems that everything is conspiring against me having time to sort the trip out. I tried to get my bike put in for a service thinking that it would simply be a matter of bringing it into a bike shop. How wrong could I be, I called a few and they are all fully booked up and I had to book mine in for next Monday (20th October).

This means I will have to leave on Tuesday 21st October, which is back to my original plan. I toyed with the idea of leaving on the Monday just to take the first step a bit easier, stopping off at Swindon overnight on the way. It looks like I will have to go straight to Oxford on day one. Luckily I have a place to stay, my one and only published writer friend Paul Kingsnorth. I emphasise published as most of my mates are unpublished writers.

It will be a real push for day one Bristol to Oxford though at a distance of roughly 90 miles if I follow the cycle routes. I think that I can bring that down a little just by altering the route slightly. Otherwise it will knacker me out before I even start. I think I can make that a more managable 70 miles by doing some of the route by road. I might even try and go straight off to Swindon on Monday. hmm options.

I really need to sit down with my relief map and sort out this trip as it is starting to stress me out a little. It gets a bit hazy from the midlands to the borders as to where the route will go and where I will stay. I need to travel a distance of over 40 miles a day to make this trip work and at the moment the most generous offers are a little clustered. Meaning I could do 20 miles one day and 100 the next. It is difficult as I really want to stay with as many ishers as possible as the whole reason for doing this trip is to meet more of them (You).

Planning the route has become a bit like doing a tax return for me I keep staring at google maps or constantly searching for alterantive routes with OS maps whilst not actually planing a route or even getting in touch with the lovely ishers who are offering me a room and food for the night. I put today aside to get this done then got waylaid on my allotment and getting that sorted for 16 days without me. I will have to the same for my homebrew too.

Tonight it out for stuff as I am taking Emma to a restaurant as a kind of pre-aniversary meal. It would appear that I will be on the road for our actual aniversary (oops!). So I guess in a way I am getting Emma ready for 16 days without me, although I am sure she would not like to hear that.

I just decided that I might as well join a bike forum and see they can help me sort out a route. Must be other people out there who have traveled at least some of my proposed route.

2 Comments

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1. Good luck!

   Comment by Eccentric Emma — October 14, 2008 #

2. Thanks Emma, I just looked at the weather forecast and I think I need it.

   Comment by andyhamilton — October 17, 2008 #

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