Tomorrow, Thursday 4th June, Gilly & I plus Gilly's brother John and Tony, a cycling buddy, set off for a long weekend to cycle from Gloucester to Reading on the Severn Thames Cycle Route. Jo my daughter, Ian and their 3 children Evie 7, Ewan 5 and Harry 2 will join us on Friday night and accompany us for a couple of days and head for home on Sunday evening. We plan to arrive in Reading at about midday on Monday.
This route as the name implies is from the River Severn in Gloucester to the River Thames in Reading. Initially we head south down the Severn to the upper Severn crossing, then turn east into Bristol. We then pick up the Bristol Bath cycle trail on a disused railway. In Bath we join the Avon & Kennet canal which takes us all the way to Reading although in places we are directed off the tow path as it is very uneven and slippery in places.
Why are we doing this - well two reasons apart from we want to and it seems like a great ride. The first is that after our last ride along the Pacific Highway from Vancouver to Mexico I have had a heart bypass op - this was on the cards for a number of years and things seem to come to ahead while cycling in the States. I had the op last August (2014) so I am now 9 months recovered. We plan to cycle across France in August - St Malo to Nice about 1000miles - so I would like see if I will be OK for the longer ride. The second reason is that John would like to join us for the France trip. He did a short tour in Holland last Autumn and since then has thrown his trailer into the bin and bought some panniers (sensible lad) so this will be a try out for his new kit.
We have both invested in new bikes - me a Genesis Longitude and Gilly a Trek FX 7.4 both set up for touring. This will be a good test for these.
Sandy's bike - please note no scratches yet !!
No comments:
Post a Comment