Re: lands end to john ogroats


vernon wrote:
> Quite a lot of the ride journals mention distances ca 1000 miles. Three
> weeks is a nice pace having spent that long myself doing it.

> 80km per day is quite reasonable if you're cycle camping and want to be a
> tourist rather than a mle eater.

Especially in the hillier bits. 80k in hills with luggage is a good
days ride. Especially if you want to have fun.

One of the real joys of cycle touring is being able to stop and stare
wherever you are. Experiencing the countryside you are travelling
through rather than seeing it through a windscrean like some sort of
reality TV. This was brought home to me on my first real cycle tour in
1990.[1] I took the bike down to Penzance and did LE-> Plymouth over
many days, visiting the Lizard and taking all the side roads and
passenger ferries. Seeing the tourists staring through their windows at
you as if you are some sort of TV documentary.

The really good things were the traffic jams - sailing past them quite
happily. I visited places I would never have gone to by car, found
quiet roads around the coast which had seen virtually no traffic (grass
growing in the centre), and basically had a good time. Being somewhat
overgeared in both the bicycle and the luggage sense [2] I wore myself
out on 50 mile days in that terrain, then spent 3 days in plymouth with
a friend before crossing Dartmoor to Tiverton station and getting the
train back to London.

...d

[1] on an old Carlton which I had fitted easy gears to for the occasion
- a 30t rear sprocket to go with the 52/42 racing chainset ;-) Add four
panniers, camping gear, an overexhuberant visit to the juggling shop in
Penzance on the first day.

[2] Climbing the hill out of Looe I passed a very lightly laden german
couple who were on a B&B tour. We happened to meet at the next cafe and
they commented on how depressing it was to be passed by such a heavily
laden bike. I didn't tell them that I was in my bottom gear and had to
climb the hill that fast or get off and walk..

.

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