JOGLE Day 8 - Leominster to Chippenham

Had an absolutely fab nights' sleep :-) and a lovely cooked breakfast.

My phone had dried out over night, but the touch screen no longer works :-( but at least all of our clothes had dried out.

There was a slight rain when we set off, but nothing to major.

We headed to Hereford then to Monmouth, Joy and myself were putting on and taking off water proofs as it rained and the sun came out.

There had been a large amount of rain and some of the roads had flooded.

We had lunch in Monmouth :-) then headed to Chepstow, and a massive climb!

I stopped to take some photies of the surrounding countryside.

When we left Chepstow we had a Welcome to Wales photo.....There wasn't one when we left Herefordshire.

From Chepstow we headed across the Severn Bridge and down hill to Chippenham and home..
---That's a Lie.....it was up steep hills and then downhill to home.

The most upsetting part of today is as we crossed over the North/South divide known locally as the M4 it started to rain again...

The cycle computer had today's ride as 80.99 miles in 6 hours 40 mins (Active time)

The GPS track can be found here...

Thanks Dave for riding with us for a couple of days...It allowed for different conversations :-)

I will try and update the blog from tommorow until the end of the ride but I definately will not be able to upload GPS tracks or Piccies until I get back home :-(

JOGLE Day 7 - Wrenbury to Leominster

Dave and Karen joined us last night and we had a lovely meal in the Cotton Arms, and we won the local quiz night :-)

We woke up in the morning and it was raining, wifey and Joy tried to buy some cycle over shoes in the local bike shop but it looked highly unlikely that they would stock them so I loaned mine to Joy.


We headed out across country to Whitchurch, the roads were very pleasant even though it was raining.

By the time we got to Shrewsbury we were all soaked, the ride to Church Stretton and lunch was long, drawn out and painful.

We had lunch at the Kings Arms in Church Stretton, we dripped all over the floor then set of on our soggy way towards Leominster.

Wifey had managed to find us a supperb B&B instead of camping :-) we could not have found a more perfect place. The Copper Hall in Leominster....we had a shared living room and two bedrooms.

The cycle computer had the ride as 66.33 miles in 5 hours 21 mins

The GPS track can be found here... and here...

I charged the gps up at lunchtime and it stopped tracking :-( hence theres 2...

JOGLE DAY 6 -Kendal to Wrenbury

I was definitely not looking forward to today's ride.

It was the longest and through major northern towns/cities.

We stopped at 21 miles for the official half way point photo's in the rather fantastically named 'Slyne With-Hest'.


It was then a swift ride into the City of Lancaster, it was also a very pleasant surprise as the city is very cycle friendly, I started to think my expectations for the day may be wrong.

Then we got to Preston..and it rained..and my expectations unfortunately were proved correct, so many dual carriage ways and junctions and large volumes of high speed traffic.

From there it just got worst...Wigan was horrible and Warrington was worse.

Joy did fantastically well, she did take a tumble again today in Preston, we were avoiding the traffic by cycling on the pavement and she over balanced.

The ride to the campsite was very long and drawn out...

The cycle computer had the ride as 110.02 miles in something like 11 hours elapsed time..

The GPS track can be found here...

JOGLE Day 5 - Powfoot to Kendal

The day started of very easily and very flat! The temperature was much cooler than it has been and it was slightly overcast.

We very rapidly came to the English border, I am very sad to be leaving Scotland behind, the scenery was amazing and all of the people we have met have been very nice and friendly (The English can learn a lot from them)

We navigated our way through Carlisle traffic reasonably successfully, diverting onto the cycleways and up through the pedestrian high street. We did however get told of by a local woman as apparently it was 'NO Cycling', Jim took all of the flak for us ;-)

We bid a sad farewell to Jim at Carlisle railway station and headed back on to the A6 to Penrith where we had a KFC for lunch. (I was famished)

After a fine lunch in the sun we headed over the very over rated Shap Fell. (It is a 1400 ft climb but very long and drawn out)

The descent from the top down into Kendal was a different story however :-) It was worth the boring ride to the top.

The cycle computer had the ride as 65.72 miles in 5 hours 8 min A smashing short day :-) But sad to leave Jim.

When we got to the campsite wifey noticed a blister on Joy's rear tyre and they went into Evans in Kendal to buy two replacements (front and rear)

We had a really good afternoon ride, we are now riding as a team, Joy is powering up the hills. Watch out Nathan I hope you have been training!

JOGLE Day 4 - Johnstone to Powfoot

The day started of very well with a full tummy of lovely breakfast prepared by Joys mother :-)

We climbed out of Johnstone across the Gleniffer Braes along some very potted and steep country roads.

We then turned onto a closed and freshly resurfaced road, it was fantastic!

We made it to the first planned photo shoot of the day very promptly at about 10:45... Moscow!

Eventualy we turned onto the A76,,It was initialy terrible very busy!

We arrived in New Cumnock for lunch and I decided to throw myself down the road :-(Unlike Joy I did leak red stuff and did require lots of sympathy!

On the plus side my left knee had started to ache and after the tumble the ache stopped:-)

After New Cumnock the A76 appeared to calm down alot , it also appeared to be downhill to Dumfries.

We had a mid afternoon tea break at Thornhill.

We negotiated rush hour traffic through Dumfries without to much issue...

It was then a reasonably quick ride to the general visinity of the campsite at Powfoot...then a 5 mile ride in circles to actually find the site.

Today started of in the rolling hills of the Braes and ended up in the verry flat lowlands.

The cycle computer had the ride as 96.13 miles in 7 hours 36 mins.

GPS track and photo's to be uploaded tommorow when I have more time

JOGLE Day 3 - Glencoe to Johnstone

Wow Glencoe campsite was fantastic (Apart from the midges)

We all got up and had breakfast early.

We did have an official Glencoe leaving photshoot before we left :-)

Then we set off on what we expected to be a very tough climb up through the mountain pass.

The views on the way up were aboslutely stunning...

It was realy good at the top of each climb to see the nice long descent stretching out ahead.
The roads were the best we have cycled down yet...

We did the final descent from Glencoe and stopped for Lunch at the rather pleasant sounding Falls of Falloch, unfortunately they were NOT nice!

We cycled on down to Loch Lomond and cooled off IN the loch.


From Loch Lomond it was a rather pleasant ride around the A814, we met wifey again at Helensburg for a drink stop, then It was on to the rather hellish Elskin Bridge, it does have a cycle lane - but it is covered in Glass and debris.

We eventually arrived at Joy's parent's house at just before 6.

We were fed and watered very well :-) now I am stuffed :-)

I cleaned Joys cycle chain off, as she appears to cover herself in oil every time she rides...

The cycle computer had todays ride as 95.68 miles in 6 hours 43 mins (Active time)

The GPS plot can be found here...

JOGLE Day 2 - Evanton to Glencoe

We had a good early start, setting of at 8:30....The Black Rock Campsite at Evanton was fantastic, very clean and excellent facilities.

The ride started of on the rather busy A9 with lots of traffic and people rushing to work. Just over the Cromarty Firth bridge we turned right of the A9 and headed onto NSR 1.

Whilst we were in the middle of failing to follow the cycle route Joy descided to see what it would be like stopping without unclipping her shoes from the peddles. Somehow she survived the fall without major injury or leaking in any way!!!

We managed to avoid cycling through the centre of Inverness by scirting around the edge, The GPS was a god send!

We cycled from Inverness to Loch Ness along some fantastic roads, nessy however was not very photogenic :-(

We cycled up a mountain! then down into Fort Augustus for lunch :-) I had a lovely pint of Cider and a Bacon Baguette, Joy made a second attempt at throwing herself of her bike...again no leaking skin and no sign of injury.

The rest of the ride was down the A82...Not a road I would recommend cycling on!!! to Busy and to Rough.

We eventually pulled into the campsite at Glencoe at about 6:30. There was a slight breeze, we cooked and ate Pasta for tea and it was all great.

The Breeze stopped and I have now discovered the hell that is midges.

I did find the hoody added some protection...
Todays ride was 98.30 miles in 7 hours 16 mins.

The GPS plot can be found here...