There and back again

Visited the Bristol - Bath old railway path again, but this time made it all the way to Bath and back again. Didn't leave home until mid-day and had planned to go and do some work at the allotment, but found that the ground was frozen solid.

So we ended up riding all the way to Bath and then turned around and came all the way home again without even stopping for so much as a pint.

A lovely but cold day.

Going the distance

Yesterday was our first test.
We were feeling slightly nervous as we embarked on our first 'long-distance' ride. Bath was our destination, 17 miles along the Bristol Bath old railway path.
But, we shouldn't have worried! We really enjoyed the ride, and managed the distance in about an hour and a half. So - we are both feeling confident that we are not completely out of our depth with our summer plans.
The path is cool, and if anyone wants to do something nice of an afternoon I would thoroughly recommend it. The path runs along an old railway, and there are a few interesting old dinosaurs to see as you go along. Also, some people have started up cute little cafes in some of the tiny little stations along the way. Very cool.
We even contemplated riding the 17 miles home again, but decided that might be a good goal for next time, and caught the train home. I think it might be a regular jaunt. Woohoo - feels like we are on our way!!!

Rough Route

Here's a link to our proposed route: http://tinyurl.com/2jz7ja (may take a little while to load)

This is only roughly plotted on Google maps so definitely won't be the final route but it shows what we're thinking of. Google estimates the distance as 3,216 km (just under 2000 miles)! Spread over 3 months this works out at an average of 20 miles per day - it seems like a much smaller distance if you say it like that!

If any of you lovely people reading this have family or friends along this route feel free to let us know! (Only if they've got a spare room or a space in the garden though...we don't really care about your families or friends)

The route shown is actually backwards - we will start in Cherbourg and finish in Palermo. Originally we were planning on going in the other direction (hence the backwards route) but realised that it would probably be better to chase the summer south than start cycling in Sicily, in August. Also heading south means you're going downhill, right?