clairedavieswriter

Today I was joined by two top quality domestiques (for those not familiar with cycling terminology, I’m not being offensive) It was nice to have company on the road… And at the pit stops. Tewkesbury Abbey was very, very old (and closed). It was a day of three rivers – we crossed the River Avon…

When a rest day happens to find you in a spa town, it seems churlish to pass up the opportunity to take the waters, metaphorically speaking. So after a suitably relaxed start, I enjoyed the best massage I’d ever had. The fact that it was also the first massage I’ve ever had should not detract…

Two historic cities bookended today’s ride, sandwiching a mostly flat, deeply rural section, dotted with dairy farms and offering views of distant hills. Unfortunately the wind had not received the memo about prevailing from the south, but on the plus side sunglasses were definitely required. The National Cycle Network continued to impress, with clear signage,…

I want to start today’s entry with a thank you to a fellow guest at my B&B, whom I’d never met until this morning. As I was loading Trixie, she first asked where I was going, then whether I was fundraising, and then disappeared into her room, coming back with a £10 note. Betty Thompson…

Today I finally bade farewell to the Devon hills and their Cornish cousins, but not before they’d had the last laugh, with a rookie error involving insufficient forward momentum and feet attached to pedals. Luckily, the high earth bank beside the road (see below, assuming the right photo appears) meant I didn’t topple too far,…

A massive thank you to everyone who has supported me on this adventure so far. If you haven’t yet and would like to, you can do so via JustGiving.com at clairedavieslejog.

Having made it through the first week, I’m now sitting in Miranda’s beautiful garden, nestled in Exmoor National Park, with warm sun on my back and birds twittering all around – the perfect way to spend a day off the bike. Inevitably though, I’m already thinking about tomorrow’s 98k ride, one that I clearly planned…

Today was all about getting up and over Exmoor. That meant climbing from 0 to 500m above sea level over a distance of 30k, before descending again. The first 10k gave me a fairly good sense of what the next few hours had in store. In a particularly cruel topographical twist, having reached 300m at…

Every picture tells a story. Today was wet. Like the Inuit and her snow, the cyclist has a number of terms for rain, starting with ‘not very nice’ and escalating through ‘a bit damp’ to ‘are we having fun yet?’. Today was definitely a ‘fun yet?’ kind of a day. In fact it was quite…

Today started as yesterday ended: following the Camel upstream. Despite the rain, I didn’t get the hump. The trail’s railway heritage showed us the way: I passed the usual joggers and dog walkers (no doggers, as far as I could tell – see earlier blog if that comment seems perplexing) but no cycle tourers, let…