Cycling around the coast of Britain

Cycling around the coast of Britain; our beautiful home land by bike

A new adventure - but this time a little closer to home...

'Aaah you're are English?! You must be very proud. England is very good country. Tell us of your home...' people would say to us, as we travelled from country to country. The truth is we really didn't know how little we knew of Britain until we left.

Post Author Christina

We never anticipated missing it, and certainly didn't think cycling in it would compare to our travel by bike across the seemingly untouched mountain ranges in Laos and Vietnam. But we were wrong. We missed the dry humor  the wet but at least changeable weather, and the standards of hygiene that Europe holds against Asia.

That's not to say we didn't have an incredible time - we certainly did and will be returning in years to come for sure... but for the foreseeable we have been inspired by Mike Carter; and whilst on the desert island Kho Tao beach, Thailand, we were reading his story and pondering our next wheeled journey. 

A cycle tour closer to home, and this time with coast, and lots of it

We spent a lot of our over land trip not surprisingly very far from any coast, and being girls from sunny Southsea, right on the southern coast of the UK, to go so long without seeing the sea was strange to say the least. Even living in Bristol we were only a short ride from the stunning Clevedon sea edge.

With all this in mind a trip around our home turf seemed a good idea; a chance to off set our carbon for the flights back, get a lot of beautiful coastal routes on the Garmin, get to know our heritage a little better... and of course it's an excellent excuse for a new bike...

Our cycle planning

Our planning was somewhere between low to non-existent. We're blaming Mike for that one. I'm pretty sure his slap dash approach to his epic adventure was meant to come with a warning, a moral to plan a little and it will get you a long way. But we selected the best bits of the book to remember, and left the head winds, 30% hills and at times unfortunate routing consequences at home with our toothbrushes and other useful things that we should have remembered, like bungies and multi-plugs.

To be fair we hadn't been back long, and so between catching up with work/new job, friends, family, and moving back to Bristol, there was not too much time to think ahead, and after cycling across three (admittedly very narrow) countries we felt we could take on the world, starting with Britain at least.

After all we were only doing four days to start off with (an annual leave project rather than all in one adventure), so we could not go far wrong in four days surely?

Cycling Bristol to Padstow - Our first around the coast section

Oh how naive we were. No there was no 40c heat. No biting mozzies, no language barrier or worry of land mines... but I cannot stress how much it should be noted that one should never underestimate the rapid succession of impossibly steep sharp or winding drop hills, and the comedy winds of our literally breath taking Cornish coast line.

It was painfully beautiful, some days more painful than beautiful, but always there was such comfort in knowing we were just across from the home coast we love so much.

Having the sea appear and reappear all the way along the route was really something, and we can't wait to get back to it again - counting down the days until Easter already.

Read about our four days on the bikes in our next post to be published shortly.