Anarchy in the UK

“Scotland’s Brilliant!!!”

– Random Scottish cyclist we met in the Highlands. 

“I kicks the flavour, like Stephen King writes horror.”
– Elizabeth II (Queen of England) 

Distance Cycled: 1237 km

Number of Loch Ness Monsters Spotted: Zero

Quantity of Fish & Chips Consumed: 709 lbs

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome back! Welcome once again my friends, to the show that never ends. We’re so glad you could attend. So grab a seat on the futon – there’s an armchair for 2 more to curl up on – and for those who like to rock, a rocking chair in the middle. And in my best attempt at adopting the local vernacular: “Let’s crack on with it, shall we?” 

It’s been 10 days since we last spoke and a bunch of stuff has happened. First off, we spent 2 days exploring Edinburgh. It’s a cool city with interesting architecture and a big ol’ castle plopped right in the middle of town. It was also full to the brim with tourists and all the hustle and bustle that goes along with a big city. We didn’t do much cycling in the city as the roundabouts are quite scary on a bicycle when you’re in the company of so many large busses, so we locked the bikes up for 2 days and set out on foot patrol. I’d show you some pictures but sadly, my phone and all its contents were erased due to a most unfortunate meteorological event. I can however, offer you this lovely hand drawn facsimile. 

The guy in the cool hat is me. The person next to me rocking the awesome “Art Garfunkel afro” is Rachel, although she’s much taller in real life. You can also see how the castle and rain cloud feature prominently.

Once we’d had our fill of the Capital, we packed our bags and cycled east along the coast through the town of Dunbar before arriving at the Scotland/England border and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The rain we experienced riding into Berwick was exceptionally soggy and we were soaked to the bone all day. It was a demoralizing day but there was a couple of highlights, like this cool field of windmills that appeared out of the mist.

We were also able to spread some good karma by helping out a group of riders when we stopped for lunch. We noticed on our way into the cafe that one of the bikes parked outside was missing its rear wheel. Inside, the guys had tools and bicycle bits spread all over the table. They were a group of 3, out for a weekend ride on their carbon racing bikes when one of the guys had blown a tire. They had run out of spares and were trying to figure out how to get home. Rachel and I are carrying a full complement of spare parts and offered them a new inner tube. While our touring tires are much fatter than their racers, they were able to shoehorn the tube in and were back on their way. They even paid for our coffee! And that’s when my cell phone died. I had done a good job keeping it dry when we were riding but when we stopped for coffee, I had so much water dripping off me as I sat at the table that the phone didn’t stand a chance. The screen went black and it was game over. I was horrified! On a multi-month trip like this a phone is essential and I really couldn’t afford to spend £900 on a new one. I manged to boot it into recovery mode and exhausted all my options, including giving it a first birthday, which is how the memory was wiped. Luckily we took a hotel in Berwick and after a night spent sitting on the radiator, the phone mostly came back to life. It’s not 100% but it’s good enough for my purposes. 

It’s no wonder the guys on the racing bikes were having troubles with their tires. We’ve been following National Cycle Route 1 and some of the terrain has been challenging. Lots of slippery black mud and more singletrack style riding then I was expecting.

We’ve been fine on our Surly’s, but those on skinny tire road bikes would have issues. Somehow we even ended up in a cow pasture, complete with live cows.

This was actually a little scary as these cows are big animals and I had no interest in bare-knuckle boxing one of them.  Rachel was a bit behind me on the path so I did my best rodeo clown impersonation to distract the beasts ’till she was safely on the other side of the fence.

It has rained almost every day we’ve been in England and all the moisture put an ass-whoopin’ on my bicycle lighting system. I was using a Busch & Muller “Luxos U” headlamp. I was an early adopter of this light having purchased one of the first to be imported to North America. It was a good light and lasted 4 years, including my cross-canada tour, but was known to have issues with water ingress and finally bit the bullet. I consider my lights to be an important part of my safety kit and had no choice but to place an order for new ones, rush delivered to a town a ways down the road. This time round I went with the German brand Supernova. Time will tell how they stack up.

One upshot of all the rain is that the countryside is lush and green.

And there are still no shortage of castles and other old-timey buildings.

In the town of Whitby, we explored a Benedictine abbey that dated way, way, way back…like, to before human hair was invented. The ruins are pretty freaky and apparently served as inspiration for Bram Stoker and his book, Dracula.

We’ve passed through many seaside towns, tracing our line around the North Sea. I can’t remember where exactly I snapped this pic, but I thought it was interesting.

One of the towns we visited was Whitley Bay, just outside the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. Rachel has extended family there and we were able to get together for a pint at an old railroad station turned pub called “The Left Luggage Room” (excellent name for a pub). It was nice to introduce some conversation into our world – we’ve been pretty much all to ourselves for the last month – and very cool that her relatives took the time to come out and say hello!

Tonight, our tent is pitched somewhere outside the town of Bridlington. Tomorrow, we’ll cycle into the city of Hull where we’ll catch a ferry over to Belgium. Once on the mainland, we’ll point our wheels east and ride into the Netherlands. We’ve only got 2 more months before we have to head back to work and there’s still so much to explore. 

In closing, I’ll leave you with a quote from the seminal Hollywood classic, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure:

“Be excellent to each other, and…PARTY ON, DUDES!” 

– Steve and Rachel in the UK