Birmingham to Kings Lynne

The weekend is here and I am off on my next trip.  I have bought some new panniers, Ortlieb front and rear rollers (classic).  Just amused myself as I realise they are probably called rollers because of the roll top!

the plan is to cycle to from Birmingham to Kings Lynne which willl mean a lot of hours in the saddle, sleep over Saturday and then return on Sunday for my Birthday.  The trip will be about 130 to 140 miles which is a fair bit more than I am used to, however I felt like stretching myself and seeing what my endurance is like, I expect to be exhausted.

I have also just fitted a new Schwalbe Marathon plus on the back, since swithing to these I have had almost no punctures so I won't be swapping back soon!!  Thanks yet again to Halfords for reserving my tyres only to find that when I arrive to pick them up they don't have them (getting tired of this at halfords).  I managed to find one local so the day was saved.  Word of warning though, they are pricey tyres however if you shop around you will be amazed at the price difference, I have found + or - £10.00.  As it was I paid £35.00 for a tyre, if I had more time I have seen the same tyre at £25.00 and even seen them for £42.00  (the price of a cheap car tyre lol)

as usual I will update this post with pics and reports on the way,  I haven't really visited the east coast so looking forward to it, the Wash is supposed to be beautiful so here we go.

Update:

I managed 132 miles, never made it to Kings Lynne on Saturday, I stayed over in Crowland.  I had covered 132 miles in total so it was a personal best.  At one point I was going completely off course, my sat nav using co-pilot seemed to be taking me constantly out of the way.  In the end I had to switch it to car mode to get a more sensible route, with the additions it left me very late in the day.

On the upside I managed a fast cycle in the morning from Crowland into Kings Lynne station 30 miles so very happy.

Heres some pictures below:

I rememberd to take some photos this one caught my eye you don't often see a blacksmiths.

A windmill pub,

This lovely couple invited me in to fill my water bottles, gave me coffee and biscuits and a rest!

There were a few of these railway crossings
this one was painted really beautifully

A falconry centre/sanctuary

Stop with my only puncture of the day

Kind Lady

On my stay over at the Crowland Hotel, I experienced a massive muscle spasm in my leg, never had one like that before very painful but some rubbing and a shower later no after effects.

The Abbey Hotel very bike friendly and accomodating!  Lovely staff and they do a good breakfast! I was treated to a free blues concert for charity so a nice way to relax before bed.

Al pacas again (seen a few in the uk now)

Another bridge

cycling past a 4 mile tailback, some of the drivers here
flew past me earlier :-)

Into Kings Lynn

The Journey home with my travelling buddy

June 22nd and home for my Birthday meal

Blowing out my candles

The Cake and then bed

I have some more to add but it's late, im tired and I have overfed lol,  A73 reckons this was the most tiring ride yet......

Approx Route:  google map of aprox route

Kings Lynne Train Station
Blackfriars Road
King's Lynn
PE30 1NX

Kings Lynne YHA

College Lane, Kings Lynn, Norfolk PE30 1JB
Tel (01553) 772 461
Website www.yha.org.uk
Email kingslynn@yha.org.uk

Birmingham to Bristol - Training for fun

Ok it's been a fair few months since I have done a + 50 mile ride and I wanted to see how it would feel.  I am a fair bit heavier again (don't ask) I have a lot of weight to remove but I still wanted to see how my legs would hold up, more importantly my knee and my achiles.

So friday night I knew I didn't have a lot planned for Saturday so I did a quick scan on the map and selected Bristol as my destination, a quick scan showed me that it was roughly 100 miles away which would be a good days trip and a nice test of my legs etc..

I booked a ticket from Bristol back to Birmingham for 6:00 pm, i figured this would give me plenty of time to arrive

I set out at around 7:30 and deliberately kept at a comfortable pace, it was going to be a long day. I have put some pics below.  I felt good, no knee pain or achilees pain although no major hills, just a few hills as normal and some long gentle climbs as well as some nice downhills, the main route was along the a417 and a38 straight into Bristol.

The only difficulty I had was the final run into Bristol which became a little convuluted but I did pick up on something called the Bristol Railway/Cycle route something I will look into later, theres a link here at some point I will meander along that one :-)

http://www.bristolbathrailwaypath.org.uk/home.shtml

Heres some pictures of my trip:

USB Power on the go

I am considering buying a dynamo and charger to power my phone from the bike, I am going to look at various options.

1. Dynamo
2. Frictionless Dynamo
3. Charging to battery
4. Output to phone/navi

There seems a fair few options out there so this will be a fun one to investigate!

Selly Oak Birmingha Along the Canal to Fazely and Tamworth Castle

I had a nice trip on Sunday,  met Marc at 8:30 in the Selly Oak Train Station car park the weather was so nice I thought it would be a good idea to turn round head to the coast and cycle there but after discussion we decided to stick to our original plan.  We headed off to explore the Birmingham to Fazely canal section. 


Canal Map on Google

This is a great ride and a fun day! There are some very smooth sections and some bumpy ones, so no road bikes however my boardman managed it 700 x 28c tires!  It is fairly well maintained and I found a  much more pleasant ride than the Birmingham to Stratford canal, which I found badly maintained in sections to the point it was easier to get off and push my bike (mountain bikes would have been fine) hybrids etc.. suffer.

Theres lot's of interesting things to look at and if your up for it theres only a little extra cycling required to get to Tamworth Castle.  

A special note on the "Tolsons Mill Wool Shop" we stumbled in on the promise of a coffee and food and what we at first thought was a museum much to the owners amusement! backing right onto the Canal at the end in a lovely old mill building it provides coffee and other cafe related delights!  The owners were lovely people and more than happy to accomodate our bikes!

Tolsons Mill Facebook Page

The Entrance to Tolsons Mill
(from their facebook page)

  42 miles covered Pics below: