Col had this idolised vision of himself cycling home for Christmas, from Nottingham to Cambridge, with a Turkey on his back. He had even worked out a route, 160km using bridleway wherever possible. It was a novel idea.
I did however have some doubts over some of the finer details. Firstly the time of year didn’t promise much daylight riding time. Secondly it was a long, long way, neither of us had cycled that distance and some slightly more accurate mapping stretched it out to 260km. Thirdly the turkey had to go. It took a couple of years but finally we were ready to give it a shot. The route was the same but the date had shifted to June, well outside turkey season.
We set off after work knowing we would have daylight until around 11pm. The route was both logical and illogical. It neatly followed the Midshires Way into the Threeshires Way taking us pretty close to our end point. Unfortunately this took us completely the wrong side of Northampton, making a big anticlockwise loop, in short two sides of the triangle instead of the shorter direct route.
We were both riding singlespeed, like there is another option right, and navigating by the 14 A5 route cards I had created by splicing together OS maps in Bing. Emergency backup was an iPhone and Google maps, and yes it was used!
Col has already covered much of the ride in his gritty account in this Daring Deed so I am not going to repeat his story.