Looking back

Wow- I dreamed of doing it and made it happen.   It was much better than I expected: the places and riding was better, the people I met were great, and the adventures were exciting while never being scary.

A lot of Britain's culture, industry and history is on display at the coast.  Combine that with the geography and the people you meet, and you have a fascinating combination.   Most people are too busy to slow down enough, and listen and look around.  I feel lucky to have had the opportunity (and the weather).

To some people, I haven't cycled far each day: to others it probably seems impossibly far.  That doesn't matter, it was never about the distance.  Almost anyone I know could do something like this ride. The hardest part is deciding to do it: after that, some planning, some hard work and a whole lot of fun.

It's difficult to pick out best bits: the hard times are necessary for contrast, and they make the adventure.  Good riding in Suffolk, the North Yorks Moors, north from South Shields, Northumberland, Fife, Moray.  The variety.  Lots of other places deserve a re-visit too.

The technology generally worked.  The GPS was great, and I never felt I needed a map, although it's always nice to pore over one.  For me, that bit was done in Winter while planning the ride.  Writing the blog worked well too, although it is time consuming on a phone, and I think uploading photos without wi-fi might have been prohibitive (time and usage charges). 

The main difficulty was keeping my phone charged: it needed charging every other day.  Without this, I would have camped more, as it was just as comfortable, and you can start riding earlier.  Some B&Bs don't serve breakfast until 8am.

I didn't quite crack the reliable way to find accommodation or campsites: I thonk because I was turning data off to save the battery, once I switched it on, loads of apps tried to usw it and response became unusably slow. I need to experiment with this.

As always, I took too much stuff. The good weather was to blame.  I took too much food (2kg), and too many changes of clothes.  It was easy to wash things each night although it didn't often dry fully overnight.  Most days I dried stuff on the back of the bike, in a mesh bag.  In continuous wet weather a visit to a laundrette or at least use of a spin dryer might be needed.