COAST TO COAST ADVENTURE
Bike adventures are one of my favourite things in life. I love the whole range of elements they involve; the planning, challenges, rewards, discoveries, et al.
These normally lengthy journeys into the unknown often deliver new experiences and plenty of stimulating emotions, helping you feel fresh and invigorated. The very best ones can stay in the mind well beyond the end of the actual event, providing vivid, long-lasting memories and recollections.
Of course things rarely go exactly to plan, and stuff can go wrong at any time. But that’s also so much part of it all. Dealing with the consequences of error and misfortune can oddly be equally gratifying, generating plenty of satisfaction from getting the show back on the road. If we’re truly honest, if everything went like clockwork, then adventures wouldn’t be anywhere near as rewarding, nor tales of them worth telling quite as much. They aren’t supposed to be predictable and easy.
My latest adventure, aimed at taking advantage of the reduction of lengthy Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, began with a call to long-time friend Shaun. The Manchester-based man is a veteran of a multitude of long bike trips, including a recent mega-mile, pan-nation epic from the UK to Mongolia. I simply wanted to know whether he fancied joining me for a day’s trail riding in the Peak District on the Tenere 700 I was planning to test. Within minutes he trumped my plan, inviting me on a much longer, near 1000-mile, four-day journey in the north of England from the coast of the North Sea, over to the Irish Sea on the opposite side of the country. It’d involve both road
