[bikemap 843632]
All done. Showered and changed, and now off to friends for a meal. Will provide a proper roundup later.
UPDATE:
Job done! What a great little jaunt we had. For some reason I’d always had some negative view of cycle paths. The one most local to us is NCR 3 and just uses some of the quiet lanes around us – exactly the point I know – but somehow I’d expected more. Why not just chokes your own route. But of course we are spoiled for choice in the home area, other parts of the country are just rat runs. But the NCR 3 & 4 we did from Reading back to Wiveliscombe was just great. 175 miles covered, and only about 15 of this off of official routes, and what must have been about 40% actually off road and on reasonable surfaces even for a road bike at the end of Winter.
It was a great eye opener for me in respect to the proposed 1,000 miler in June, I’d be very happy to do that day after day. But it did show that trying to do 60 miles per day on that sort of surface means that you get no time for sight-seeing or for enjoying a leisurely lunch of refreshment stop. 40 miles a day is going to be a lot more realistic, as I had suspected.
Also the constant rumbling over gravel tracks takes it’s toll on one’s nether regions, so stops and leg stretches are important for comfort. Probably not helped by wearing the same cycling under-crackers for 3 days. Not intended, but it was too cold to take the option of just using the cycling shorts on the 3rd day, as I had intended.
Anyway, really pleased with the outcome, everyone else seemed to have a good time, and I’m raring to have another trip ASAP after coming back from skiing.
40? Really?
Not me, another Dave who is 40.