I had 35 miles to do in eight hours. The challenge would be to avoid too much time sitting around in bars. Or so I thought.
I set about some serious dawdling. That's easy in Liverpool: there's so much to see. Almost immediately after leaving Crosby, the sea front changes from prom to fenced-off docks. The next several miles near the shore are a mess of docks and fast roads, so I escaped onto the Leeds & Mersey Canal, which neatly bypasses Bootle, bringing you out on Liverpool's dockside, which is now very spick and span, warehouses transformed into expensive apartments.
There is a lot to dawdle over, with a mix of heritage, grand buildings, shopping, and modern visitor attractions. It's a nice place to be, and you could easily spend a day exploring, if you didn't have a bike to look after.
The dockside continues out of Liverpool to the south, on un-reconstructed cobbly paving, so dawdling is in fact essential to protect your sensitive bits. I found myself, surprisingly, on the Trans-Pennine Cycleway to Bridlington. Met up with another cyclist and we chatted for several miles, gradually increasing the pace until I was glad when he had to turn off.
I had sort of planned a late lunch in Garton. My notes said "plenty of pubs and cafés", which was true, but they were mostly boarded up, closed, or weren't the sort of place I'd dare to go in. After several hot circular miles, I found an Asda - not what I'd imagined, but it was Ok.
I hope there was a good reason for the big detour inland that my route then took. It may have been avoiding Liverpool's John Lennon Airport, or the Halewood car factory, but it seemed a very long way round. Eventually, back on the waterfront, joining the disused St. Helens Canal. And - relax.
Or not. It was closed, just before a mega road junction, with no obvious diversion. I was just about to take my life in my hands and join a junction of two major trunk roads, when I saw a cyclist coming the other way down a closed-off track. So I went that way. It was better, but still bad. It led to the centre of Widnes, and a busy A road towards Warrington, my destination. After several stressful but not dangerous miles, I found my way back to the canal, and REALLY relaxed for the last few miles to the station at Warrington. It's only a bit over two hours to London from here: a mark of how far I've come since Glasgow, three hours further on the same line.
Tickets collected, four hours till the train, exhausted: there was nothing for it but a night on the town with the young things of Warrington. But not too much to drink: I have to ride home when I arrive in Euston at 23:34. Possibly in the rain.
With hindsight, I should have caught the train from Liverpool. The next bit wasn't coast really, and it was a lot of hassle. Lesson learned, perhaps.
** Post script **
The adventure wasn't quite over. I lasted three hours in the pub with unlimited coffee/tea for company. I can confirm it was unlimited, but not quite sure if it was tea or coffee.
When you take a bike on a Virgin train, you put it in a compartment near the engine, which has to be specially unlocked by the guard. It usually works well but this time, the guard came and unlocked for me to load my bike on, and while I was propping my bike up, he promptly locked the door, with my panniers still on the platform. I sprinted down the carriage to the other door, pushing aside all the other passengers who were getting on and stowing large cases here and there, and managed to retrieve them.
From there onwards, it was straightforward. Two and a half hours to Euston; flying through London's empty streets at midnight, aided by a following wind and a lot of green traffic lights. Arriving at Twickenham, I went into a nearby phone box and changed out of my Coastal Adventurer costume, and turned back into plain old Simon.
