Before leaving Stratford, we cycled back to the busy (so many tourists) Henley street to start the day with a nice cappucino. We would need it today, as we had another 100km day ahead of us to keep up with Anne and Reece. Well, there is a route that is only 80km, but we prefer to follow the recommendations of the NCN. The weather forecast was overcast but dry – which turned out to be wrong and wet.

Getting out of Stratford, we hit another one of those nice Greenways which are former railway routes that are now cycling/walking paths. In Long Marston, we left the Greenway and followed the cycle path up and down and through the Cotswolds, which was beautiful and brought us back to more sheep friends.

And then the rain started. First it was just a little drizzle and then it intensified. With the worsening rain, the route also worsened – when we hit the A4095 after East End, there was lots of traffic and the cycle path was on a smallish sidewalk along the road. We sped up and slowed down to not get drenched by passing cars going through deep puddles.

We wanted to work on our habit to have a pint when we have less than 20km to go, but being rather wet, we decided to check the rain radar in the pub entry hall and only have the pint if the rain would stop soon. We did not have a pint, but snacked on a gingerbread cookie and then pushed to reach the guesthouse in Oxford sooner.

Anne and Reece also got soaked on their way to Oxford: “[we] got to Oxford about 3:30, having spent some time under trees during cloudbursts, and having been soaked several times when trees weren’t available.” It is nice that we have the fancy, fast-drying bike outfits – being drenched in woolen pants must have been much less comfortable. And speaking of fancy, we also do not use trees but simply put on our high-tech rain jackets to stay dry.

After warming up with a hot shower and washing and hanging up to dry all the gear, we headed out for sushi at Taberu and then went to look at the university buildings around Bodleian Library; one can see the inspiration for Harry Potter indeed, and it must be special to study in these old halls.

Total distance/elevation to date: 952km/8455m
Day 12 Route and Stats

Rest day Monday! We slept in and cycled to the laundromat to wash our clothes and cycling outfits in a machine for the first time since we started. We hand wash the cycling outfits every night, and the few other clothes we brought as needed, too. Thankfully, my Japanese linen pants and Indian short Kurta dry quickly.

Then it was maintenance time. We cycled to a carwash to clean the dirt off the bikes using a power washer, and also used it to clean the drivetrain. In the picture above, Liz is using the bike-chain-cleaning sponge to get the sticky oily stuff off. We used some two-in-one cleaning and lubing fluid for this that the man selling us the Schwalbe tires gave us. Worked well!

The powerwasher made cleaning easy, but thanks to our friend James, we now know that this was not such a great idea – if you aim the water jet wrongly at the bike, you can push water into and protecting grease out of bearings 😦 We did not specifically aim the jet at the bearings, but we were also not too careful. We’ll listen carefully to our bikes in the coming weeks to see if we need to go to a shop to get things re-greased.

Then it was time for a Pizza lunch and then yoga! It was good to use the upper body muscles a bit and do all the stretchy poses.

Not very hungry after yoga, we went straight to the Royal Shakespeare Company to see King Lear. Our tickets were 60 pounds each. Anne and Reece paid $1 and $1.50 to see the Taming of the Shrew at the time – I think even inflation adjusted that was quite a bit cheaper.

I thought the play was very good, even though I had some trouble understanding the Shakespeare English and keeping track of  which of the Dukes, Albany or Cornwall, is with which of the daughters, Regan or Goneril. When I voiced my worries about understanding the English to the nice man at the laundromat, he told me not to worry and that most English people also do not understand what is being said.

Overnight, there was a big thunderstorm that got Liz’s cycling clothes on the line outside wet again – thankfully I left my jersey inside. Katherine, the super nice proprietor of the Elmdon Lodge, spun the wet clothes for us so Liz could at least wear the pants again for the ride.

Again a big breakfast – cereal, and toast and beans for me, and yogurt with fruit and poached eggs on toast for Liz. We got on the road by 10.30 and had a shorter route ahead with about 60km and not much elevation. This was nice because the thunderstorm likelihood at around 16.00 was predicted to be 70%.

We got back on the canals, where the wet, muddy conditions on the at times rather narrow paths made me mentally go through steps of how to best recover a bike from the bottom of a canal. We rode slow and safe and stayed dry.

We are riding on what is called a towpath, which is used to move boats without motors from land (some of these canals are very old, most from the 18th century but some even dating back to the Roman occupation).

Then we left the canal to ride toward Kenilworth, where Anne and Reece had stayed the night at the time. Kenilworth had a festival going on and we ran into a performance of the Spa Strummers, a Ukulele big band. We listened to them playing Valerie by the Zutons, Count on Me by Bruno Mars, and Wagonwheel by Bob Dylan. Very nice!

Next we cycled on to the Kenilworth Castle and the Queen & Castle pub right opposite of it for an IPA and a cider. Anne and Reece had stayed at the Queen & Castle on their tour. But now it does not have guest rooms anymore and is a rather fancy gastropub.

On to the next castle in Warwick! Anne and Reece thought the tour of the castle was “one of the most interesting things we’ve seen. The rooms are all completely furnished with gorgeous furniture, old cabinets, clocks, tapestries, etc. from all over the world, and there are some beautiful original paintings by Van Dyke. One room had in it all this old armour worn by different knights and members of the Warwich family.” [Anne Stuart letter to family, Thurs. Sept. 2, 1948.] Admission at the time was 2 shilling and 6 pence (2/6), or 1/8 pounds, or $0.50 per person. Adjusting for inflation this should have still been less than $10 today, but instead the cheapest ticket (excluding dungeons and jousting) was a whopping 28 pounds ($37) per person, but for more like a medieval theme park than a museum. There were also tons of tourists so we decided to skip Warwick castle and try and beat the rain to our AirBnB in Stratford-upon-Avon.

On the final 24km to Stratford, we made very good time on the roads suggested by the NCN, except for when we had to wait for a cow herd to cross the road. 278 animals he has, the farmer mentioned, and he supplies milk to Asda.

From all the puddles and mud in the morning, our gears were making more noise than usual, and we need to do a proper cleaning/degreasing and lubrication tomorrow. On the front of my Raygun jersey (thanks Meredith!), it says “our gears we prize and our bikes we will maintain”. Amen.

Total distance/elevation to date: 851km/7624m
Day 11 Route and Stats

Today started with a huge breakfast. We keep forgetting that you order a hot breakfast at the table and usually over-indulge on the buffet before ordering. Liz got eggs florentine and I got a salmon/scrambled eggs sandwich (very delicious by the way). After my Müsli and my sandwich I was sorted nutritionally for the day.

Before leaving Stafford, we made a quick stop at the Specialized store to buy new water bottles – their Purist series supposedly does not impart the water with a plasticky taste, so we got those. I think I still have a plasticky taste, but I’ll give the product a few days. Regarding hydration, our strategy is to carry 2.25l of water each and drink it during the day. Once it gets hot, we’ll surely have to carry more, though.

The NCN left us hanging a tiny bit today in that the Route 5 going south-east just suddenly ends. But we found a good route through the Cannock Chase AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) to reconnect with Route 5 near Burntwood, where we stopped for coffee, a Pasty, and some donuts to snack.

Following Route 5 south, we hit a channel leading to Birmingham near Smethwick. There, we had to do a small detour to check out the Brooks Saddles factory, which was underwhelming because it was closed, but it was still neat to be close to the place where the saddles were made that we will ride on for the next three months.

Reece and Anne’s bikes had Wrights saddles that were also made near Birmingham, and the company would eventually be taken over by Brooks. This also caused Brooks to move out of Birmingham city centre to a building in Smethwick large enough to house the combined Wrights/Brooks production facilities.

We did not actually see much of Birmingham, because we just followed the canal system through town and south of it to the Guest House in Acocks Green. In the city, there are again many locks to overcome the elevation. At one lock we talked to the boaters and they said they are in a 24h boating event that started this morning at 8.00 and ends tomorrow at 14.00 (they need to get 6h rest). In the event, you get points for canals traveled and locks passed. So far, they had something like 25 locks and estimated that they would do about 60 over the whole 24h, and also remarked that they are unlikely to win the event.

In order to balance our diet a bit, we went to a small local grocery store to buy Naan, some veggies and a Romanian version of Feta for dinner. And we had the rest of the nice beer that we bought at Titanic yesterday (good not to have to carry it much further, too).

Tomorrow, we’ll have but a short trip (about a Marathon Distance) to Startford-upon-Avon, where we’ll also have the next rest day on Monday. And we booked a Shakespeare play, too!

Total distance/elevation to date: 790km/7333m
Day 10 Route and Stats

I rode once with a Brazilian cab driver in San Francisco who, when I asked him if he missed home, told me he missed every place he’d ever been.

I’ve been wondering the last two days why, when given a new stretch of road, I find myself comparing it to more familiar places. We’ve had some wooded hilly sections where the tires sounded like riding in New Hampshire. We’ve had some flat dry sections between fields that could be Iowa – and I’ve twice now coasted behind a Goldfinch, Iowa’s state bird. And yesterday we even hit a dry sandy section with tall brush on both sides that could have been the un-touristy parts of the Bahamas.

Today we had houseboats, which make me think of Amsterdam. Fifteen kilometers in, we encountered a team headed upstream, and we stopped to watch as she powered their boat into the lock and he closed the gate.

The man mentioned the section was called Heartbreak Hill – a section requiring navigating locks every 200 meters or so. Most of our route followed the canal system all day, and we were pleasantly distracted from the rain by watching and chatting to people navigating the channels.

On a climb out of Red Bull (actual name) we passed a lovely English lady who told us she was just mentioning to her husband that we “looked quite slow for youngin’s,” so decided to abandon our Strava stats and celebrate our youth at Titanic Brewing, just off the cycle path and famous for a Plum Porter, where the team helped us pick out some nice pairings for our soggy picnic lunch and sent us off with some dry t-shirts.

Fortified and feeling slightly speedier, we enjoyed improving weather and slight declines, mostly also along the canals, to Stafford. Happy for a shorter day and to be dry for the evening – I hope every rainy day reminds me of this one.

Day 9 Route and Stats

After yesterday’s marathon-route, we slept in and had a late, late start at 11.15, which was ok since we only planned a quick 60k (still took us about 4h due to lots of unpaved paths).

After descending into Widnes, the bike path suddenly stopped at a construction site. The path was leading to a bridge over the river Mersey, and not being able to take that bridge would have meant either a big detour or an illegal highway ride. Thankfully, we saw another cyclist that told us that there is a bus service from right where the path stops to the other side of the bridge. No signs telling anybody that.

At the time, Anne and Reece stayed with friends in Runcorn, the town where the bridge/bus leads to. Their friends, the Moss’s, saved up both fuel and food rations to show Anne and Reece around the area and to dine them well. On a car trip, they visited Liverpool, where they described the bomb damage to the cathedral (I did not know that the Luftwaffe bombing runs went this far). As a thank you, they left a carton of American cigarettes and a half pound of chocolate (monthly ration per person was 3/4 pound).

Shortly after Runcorn, my back wheel became spongy and we had to do a pit stop. A tiny glass shard went through both the tire and the thick Continental Tour tube. What a bummer. Upon inspection, it also became clear that my back tire was almost worn through and of low quality in general. So buying proper tires was added to the todos.

Related, the other part of the bikes we had to replace after purchase (though before this trip) were the carriers. On our first test ride with medium-heavy panniers, my carrier broke at a welding seam after a bump. So we ordered heavy, German made (Tubus), stainless steel carriers to replace the ones that Kona put on the bikes.

Following the Weaver (again thank you NCN!) was beautiful, and we ate the rest of the naan and cucumber with some feta for lunch there. I also called a bike shop in nearby Northwich and was very, very happy when they told me that they have nice, German Schwalbe Marathon tires in stock.

Given my impression of the quality of the tires we had on the bikes during the pit stop, we decided to invest in Germany again and bought a full set to replace all the tires. The back wheels will be Schwalbe Marathon Plus, where the friendly bike shop man remarked: “If you can puncture those, you can be proud of yourself”. Let’s hope he is right!

With only 20k left, we decided to carry the tires to the inn where we are staying the night, so we can do the replacing accompanied with some nice ale. I decided to use the opportunity to also adjust the disc brakes, as the pads have worn down a bit already. No more punctures from now on!

Day 8 Route and Stats

110km and 1000m elevation results in a long, long day. We started at 10.00 and arrived at 19.00 – moving time 6h15min, so good amount of breaks. After showers, dinner and an ale we crashed for the night without journaling, so this is a bit late.

The first ten miles were awesome. On the way and after Lancaster we had perfectly flat terrain and we averaged about 20km/h. Then we turned away from the coast, did our first M6 overpass and were back in the ups and downs.

Given the length of the route, we did not adhere to the break every 20km rule and only stopped for refueling at about 27km at the The Barn at Scornton. Liz’s carrot cake was drowning in sugary cream, which was nice. And the Cappucinos were the best we had so far in the UK. We also met a nice couple road cyclists that gave us a gel: “You need it more than we do to get to Rome.”

Then we squiggled east almost as far as Longridge where Anne and Reece had stayed the night we stayed in Morecambe. After another overpass of the M6, we arrived in Preston where we stopped to get lunch supplies at a store catering to the local Muslim and Indian community. Great Naan, cucumber, tomato and labneh sandwiches ensued. We did not buy a watermelon.

Also in Preston, we visited Evan’s cycles to find two Specialized Purist water bottles that, according to reviews, don’t give the water a plastic taste. No luck, so our hunt goes on and our water stays plasticky.

Only 50km to go at this point! For motivation, we started listening to music on our Bluetooth speaker. For some reason, I had Busta Rhymes Gimme Some More in my head, so that was first. Then we sang along to Please Come to Boston by David Allan Coe while cycling through the countryside and up some hills.

Music carried us close to Roby Mill and into the Star Inn, where we refueled with Guinnes for the final stretch to St Helens. The bartender was also a cycletourer and she gave us some tips of where to go in Belgium.

After dinner in St Helens, we walked by the former site of The Fleece, the hotel where Anne and Reece had stayed in 1948. According to newspaper articles, it had been the place to be at the time. The hotel building was torn down at some point to make space for a shopping building.

Tomorrow, we make it an easier day!

Day 7 Route and Stats

After a great breakfast at the Queens Head Hotel (porridge and pancakes), we decided to do a lap around Grasmere and Hawkshead before leaving the Lake District to go south. The lap included the steepest gradient so far, 25%, but the rest day and the granny gear got us up. We crossed the Windemere on the ferry (just like back in 1948, the ferry is still pulling itself from shore to shore using a pair of steel cables attached to each side!).

After another climb and descent, we got into Kendal where we bought some bicycle cleaning tools (yesterday I cleaned the gears using q-tips, tissues, and cardboard – not ideal) from the very nice man in Evan’s Cycles. Further in the town center, we also had a quick lunch (sandwiches, crisps, and some soda) before we went on.

We again planned the route using the Sustrans map, which has yet to fail us. Route 6 brought us south on smaller roads with very little traffic.

Since we did the loop around the District, it would have been a very long day to ride all the way to Longridge where Reece and Anne stayed. So we decided to stop earlier and at the ocean. Bike path opportunism brought us to Morecambe near Lancaster.

The hotel Craigwell is small but nice and our room overlooks the ocean. Again not feeling fried foods, we opted for Indian cuisine at Saffron which was tasty. Garlic Naan! The walk along the boardwalk showed that Morecambe had its glory days in earlier days.

A key reason might be Ryanair. As Tripadvisor forum user WorldBreeze puts it: “Who in their right mind would go to this hole when you can jump on a Ryanair flight to spain for a fiver.”

We can say that it did not feel like a hole at all: The older store fronts have a certain charm and we also enjoyed the walk along the very nicely done seaside promenade (ok, maybe Aldi does not need to have seaside property smack in the middle). And there was new construction and obvious efforts by the community to revive the town. Go Morecambe!

Day Six Route and Stats

Drinking deeply from the spirits of the Lake Poets and this glass of highlands whiskey at the Queens Head pub and Inn on the victory side of Kirkstone Pass – tomorrow is a rest day, after all.

Today’s ride was short  (“short” – 70k, relative to what we’ve been doing) in anticipation of the pass (“pass” to the Swiss – 454m). We started off just after 10AM despite a 7:30AM alarm, mostly due to over-optimization of routes and hotels and two rounds of croissants, the 9 GBP continental breakfast being too expensive and too heavy for cycling.

Hit a gorgeous trail leaving Carlisle, following the National Cycle Route 7 south. Said hello to many friendly walkers out for a Sunday stroll. Had a substantial delay when we diverted to the 10, a dedicated cycle way, which was dedicated mostly to people with full suspension mountain bikes, passing over farm roads with large stones or loose dirt – but again had the sheep to keep us company and no one slipped out.

Pushed too hard or waited too long before lunch, and over-indulged at the Sportsman’s Inn with roast chicken and steak pies and a cask ale. Soon after we slowly got going again after lunch, we descended to Ullswater Lake.

We struggled over rolling hills along the lake for 10 kilometers, with more cars than we were used to, until the last re-fueling before the climb at a telephone booth that seemed to serve the sheep.

Kirkstone Pass is unlike Swiss passes, in that it shows itself to the rider from the start. It’s wild, with open, rocky pastures and sheep and stone walls, and we had some dynamic cloud cover to heighten the drama. With 20% grades and 270 meters of climbing in ~3 kilometers, it warranted some awe and reasonable racking of brains to remember what the Lake Poets thought of it all.

We have few photos of Reece and Anne on their bikes on the pass, and perhaps because of those for me this stretch has been the symbol of the whole trip, the thing I visualize when I thought about what it’d be like or what we would do. Five plus years of planning or dreaming about this, and to finally be here ascending these same routes feels like a highlight of my life. There’s something profound to be said here about achieving goals, but tonight I’m just proud my legs got me to the top and thankful for a rest day tomorrow. And for the whiskey.

Day 5 Route and Stats

First, congratulations Harry and Meghan! And thank you, because we think you are the reason there were so few cars on the roads today. As I write this, Liz, or better, Elizabeth, is getting all caught up with your wedding.

We again deviated from the original route that Reece and Anne took. Their route from Hawick along Langholm, Canonbie, and Longtown to Carlisle is where the big A7 road runs today, which would not have been much fun. It would have been shorter (about 73km) instead of the indirect cycle path route that we chose that ended up being 100km, but very beautiful and quiet 100km.

The day started with Billy of the host couple of the Bank Guest House (would recommend!) made us a full English breakfast. It was very tasty, but we now think that black pudding and ham are not the ideal sports foods.

We had a slower start and only hit the road by ten-ish. First we quickly stopped at the building where Anne and Reece had stayed (at 22 High Street, we stayed at 12). Unfortunately, the wooden doors were locked and we could not take a picture of the mosaic indicating the name of the former hotel, the Crown (Croon in the Mosaic). It now is still an (apparently empty) office building.

And here what it might have looked like back then, see the hotel on the right:

Off we go! After a slow gradual climb to near Stone, we rolled down just as gradually to Newcastleton where we had humongous Cappucinos (we are not in Italy yet, so ordering this at noon is still ok) and a Club Sarnie, which is the word here for sandwich.

Refueled, we started following National Cycle Path 10, which brought us through beautiful landscapes with sheep on tiny roads that had very little traffic (or the wedding really kept people glued to TVs). This was between Newcastleton and Kirkcambeck.

With the sheep came rolling terrain, and I usually try to convert as much potential into kinetic energy to shoot up the next short climb. On one of those drop and ups, a sheep relaxing on the side of the road decided that me passing it a few meters away poses a threat, and – I have no clue how it determined that this was the best course of action – started running into the road in front of me. My hands were not on the brakes because I was optimizing aerodynamics as well, so all I could do was swerve to the right, at which point the sheep had finally realized that instead of reducing, it was increasing risk, and started reversing direction away from me, but slipping on the pavement in the process. We ended up not colliding and probably both having a minor heart attack. Lesson learnt: Waste energy and stay slow and safe if sheep are present.

And we passed a signpost for Rome! Just 1141 miles (1836km) left! We are now thinking that before going east, we should pass Rome, where Reece and Anne had originally planned to end their trip before they received word in Paris around Oct. 1 that Reece’s sister Elizabeth (why Liz is named Liz!) would marry David Kruidenier on Dec. 29th, which caused them to seek an earlier ship home.

Still avoiding the A7 road, we followed National Bike Route 7 in a roundabout way into Carlisle, where we are staying at the Crown&Mitre in the center of town. Realizing we should be eating Fish and Chips but really not feeling fried food with all the cycling, we went for Thai, then a McFlurry dessert, and a delicious Tempest Brave New World IPA that we carried from the brewery. Tomorrow we will reach the Lake District!

Day Four Route and Stats