Big Ben's Travelogue Blog

 A 7:07 alarm this morning meant a much more civilised start to the day than the earlier times kept by some of the psychopaths I am travelling with.  Premier Inn breakfast was pretty good, although I would only score it at 7 on 10 due to the poor placement of the sausages which did not enable them to form a breakwater between the beans and the egg.  After a bit of mechanical work swapping wheels around we were ready for an 8:30 depart. Due to the new rules from today we were a bit more careful than previously to separate into groups of no more than six.  I remained with the A-team who were last to depart.  Today's ride to Penzance was a good bit shorter than previous days at only 55 miles ish.  This wasn't good enough for our bunch so we promptly went the wrong way out of the hotel, down a massive hill then back up it when we realised what had happened. I forgot to mention yesterday we passed a comedy club owned by Jethrow the West Country comedian a local legend whose DVDs are

 Today was not really a resounding success for me cycling wise.  The ride started well with a quick wheel swap so I had a straight and true rear wheel and a decent breakfast (Premier Inn if you are reading this, and I know you are, use Tiverton as a model of how to run a hotel.)  We managed to travel a good 500m from the hotel before Padraig got a flat tyre.  All of the A-team were aware of this so once again decided to help a man in distress by f**king off up the road. After ruining a further inner tube whilst trying to fix the first one we were on our way again, straight into the toughest climb of the tour, a brutal 10%+ average gradient.  I attempted to break the gradient down by zig zagging, however even this went wrong when I rode directly into a mud bank, too out of breath to steer my bike. The good news is what goes up must come down, we were rewarded for our climb by a steep descent on a very pot holed and gravel strewn road, adding a fun element of danger to proceedings.  Agai

 My experience at the Swindon Premier Inn was generally unsatisfactory.  I will detail the reasons for this using a management technique called the shit sandwich.  In common with all Premier Inns the bed was very comfortable.  The downsides were no clock in the room and nowhere to plug in your phone near the bed.  The other major problem was contrary to the company's own web site breakfast did not start until 8:00, which was well after our scheduled departure time.  In its place we were given 'breakfast boxes'  they were useless.  The final positive layer in our metaphorical sandwich was the location was handy for the M4. My alarm (on my phone, not the one in the room, that would be impossible) woke me at 6:36AM at which point I opened my breakfast box.  It comprised some instant porridge, a belvita bar, some fruit, some orange juice and the kind of muffin where the plastic wrapper will biodegrade long before its contents.  This would have made a great snack but as a calori

This morning I got up early and left my house at the beautifully palindromic 7:27 in order to ride up the hill to the start line.  Today was when we pointed our bikes West and left Cambourne.  Destination Swindon. The main thing I know about Swindon is the few times I have been there by car it has take f-ing ages.  It turns out it takes even longer by bike.  The route followed a familiar pattern for any Cambourne based cyclists in that it started off with a drop through Caxton then heading out through the Gransdens.  Certainly a well trodden path.  At this point the entire squad of 12 riders were in a big (but socially distanced group) along with a few other club members who were joining us for the ride out. Bullrush Bike Club - Today As we approached the metropolis of Bedford it was decided to split into two smaller rider groups to make it easier to managed traffic and for traffic to manage us.  This proved to be a great idea and we split into the A-team (my team) and some others.  Th

Good evening readers.  Time for another installment of my travelogue blog, this time covering my forthcoming summer holiday to Cornwall.  By bike. Sometime late last year I signed up for an organised cycle ride entitled "St Ives to St Ives."  The idea was to ride from the St Ives near my house (Cambridgeshire) to St Ives miles away (Cornwall.)  This was quickly adopted by the bike club I belong to and perverted into Cambourne (where we live) to Camborne (in Cornwall, where we don't.) As 2020 cycling season approached corona mania gripped the UK.  This coincided with my work on an emergency ventilator project which really got in the way of my training.  I wasn't to concerned at that point as I was confident the trip would be corona-cancelled, which it duly was. My joy on hearing the trip was off was quickly spoiled by several of my fellow bike club members taking the initiative and organising a self-run trip which I foolishly agreed to join.  The Bullrush Bike Club wer

Today's artiste choice is in honour of the chap we sat near on the train who had clearly had a similar experience to Lulu and someone had made him want to shout.  This was clear by how loudly he conducted his mobile telephone call. Sorry should have put a spoiler alert before the previous paragraph, but then again it could have been a train to the hire car place or the airport.  It wasn't, it was the train home.  Yesterday a decision was taken to book a place on a train early-ish in the morning.  Most of the group went for a later train as first class was quite cheap, sadly Patricia and I were on a deadline so a 10:00 departure it was. Before I detail the train journey I have a few further things to raise from yesterday's tourism.  The first item is summarised by the caption below the picture. WTF The second is a picture I took of the Balmoral hotel on the walk home from dinner last night.  The clock on the Balmoral hotel is relevant to today's shenanigans in

It turned out that the spot of bad weather we had experienced the day before was in fact rather worse than it seemed, the entire country was indeed Wet Wet Wet.  Despite that we woke and met for our usual healthy hotel breakfast, at which I was granted an extra sausage by the lovely serving lady, perhaps as deferred compensation for the coffee the day before being utterly vile. The resident pilot in our group had used his industry contacts to confirm our flight was all good this was backed up by the Easyjet web site.  Thirty minutes later this proved not to be the case and all flights were cancelled.  This was great news as far as I was concerned as it offered the chance to drive a minibus, possibly on two wheels at some points. Minibus hire arranged and paid for through the Holidayautos web site Keith, Chris and I set off for the airport to collect the vehicle before returning to the hotel to collect the rest of the gang and our luggage.  Luckily the hotel bar was able to stay ope

Today was the reason we had made the journey.  Scotland would play England for the Calcutta cup and Six Nations glory.  For whoever lost it would feel like walking on broken glass, as Annie Lennox once said. Not a bad start to the day with a full English  British breakfast which was fairly well presented with the sausages well positioned to form a breakwater between the beans and the rest of the meal.  Only let down by the hotel coffee being vile.. The chaps left the hotel at 12:00 with a view to being somewhere near the stadium well in advance of kick off so being able to find a table in a pub and have a relaxing afternoon. What we had forgotten was we were in Scotland, land of the brave and home of the perma-thirsty.  From 12:01 onwards every pub we visited was rammed. Thanks to some local knowledge gained on a stag do 15 years ago I was able to take the group easily the most direct route to the stadium.  In common with all mavericks it took some time for my so called friends t

I have analysed the proclaimers most famous hit in some detail in an earlier blog post so no need to go over old ground, however another of their oeuvre is relevant to today's activities. Today was set aside for seeing the sights of Edinburgh and generally doing tourist stuff.  To prepare for this we went for breakfast in the hotel which some reviewers have described as 'disappointing.'  In particular the coffee was particularly poor. The first thing any tourists have to do in Scotland's capital city is visit the castle, which dominates the city from its hilltop home.  The walk up to the summit provides more questions than answers, specifically: i)  how can it be possible for 400 adjacent cashmere shops to survive and thrive ii) why did Keith agree to pose for the following picture. Keith this morning Other highlights included spotting Fleshmarket close, not much remarkable about this other than it is the title of an Ian Rankin book about detective Rebus. 

"I've had the same jeans on for four days now" - so sang Scottish Indy group the view in their 20XX hit (guess the year.)  Not true in my case, I had put a clean pair of strides on as part of preparation for my trip to Edinburgh.  The trip to Scotland marks the final visit in an arduous series of tours to watch England play Rugby at every away Six Nation venue.  The arduous bit is because every time we make the trip England seem to lose (except against Italy, obvs.) The day got off to a splendid start at Cambourne's premiere drinking establishment, the Monkey.  Luckily our taxi was running late so there was time to relax and enjoy the finest drinks in all Cambridgeshire.  A short ride to St Neots saw us arrive in time for an earlier train to Peterborough where we would make our connection to Edinburgh.  However due to some fannying about we missed that one so enjoyed half an hour in the unseasonable sunshine.  The ladies choosing this point to crack open the first