For a variety of reasons I figured that it would be good to cycle down the Sustrans 1 route from Hull to Cambridge, probably over two days as a credit card tourer. One of the reasons is that I have enjoyed cycling slightly further afield to places like March and Wisbech and wanted an opportunity to go a bit further. Doing this trip meant I would only have the need to travel by train on one direction and my wife and daughter had a few days planned in London to go to the theatre so I could do it with a clear conscience. It was also an opportunity to see how tolerant of sitting on a bicycle for hours my body was, especially the recently mended collar bone.
There were two key things to work out, the first was how to navigate the route and the second was how to get there in the first place. As I was travelling on Sunday and I wanted to watch the Silverstone Grand Prix on television before I went it meant that I had to plan on a train leaving after around 3.30pm. A quick look on the Journey planner at National Rail highlighted one issue I would need to watch out for - engineering works are often scheduled over weekends. Often engineering works mean buses and when they use buses they don't carry bicycles. (actually I have once returned to Norwich station to find buses replacing trains because of late night engineering works . It was late in the evening so there were not many passengers, but two of us had bicycles, fortunately the bus driver hadn't read the rules and popped then in the luggage space for us.). One of the routes suggested was via Ely to Peterborough, but replacement buses meant it was a non-starter for me. Fortunately there was a Cambridge to Stevenage train where I could then catch a direct Hull Trains train to, yes you've guessed it Hull. An alternate route was still via Stevenage, but then changing at Doncaster. Personally when I am taking a bicycle with me I prefer to minimise the changes required. I find that I generally end up running up and down stairs whilst carrying my bike trying to find where on earth I am supposed to put my bike on the train 'cos they are all different. I wanted a relaxed start to the journey with time to read the papers.
Despite all of the great technology used by the myriad train operators with live timings available and journey planners you can't buy tickets and book bicycles at the same time on the web and depending upon the railway company some strongly having a booking it. In any case I did not want to end up stranded in Stevenage because there was no space on the train for my bike. I booked at the last minute, I wanted to make sure the weather was going to be OK, and in the end popped into the railway station on Saturday and got my tickets and booking at least the bicycle went free.
I have also been experimenting with loading routes onto my Garmin Edge GPS and using it as a navigation tool. This involves trying out different websites to generate the data as the software that comes the Garmin EDGE (MAPSOURCE) would require a lot of work to create a long route. For choice I would like to be able to download the latest Sustrans route data from Sustrans - I would pay for the data from Sustrans as it would probably be the most up to date. In the end the choice came down to one of two websites BikeRouteToaster and BikeHike. My goal was to be able to create a route that followed Sustrans 1 from Hull to Cambridge with a bit of modification to allow me to route to hotels for overnight stays in Hull and Boston. I was not bothered about on-screen directions riding a bike is different to driving, it is more leisurely and allows time to glance at the map.
There is a useful "Dummy" type guide here it give some insight into using the Garmin EDGE - although there is nothing like a bit of experimentation.
I like BikeHike because it shows a Google maps window alongside a smaller Ordnance Survey window and the OS map shows cycle routes as green dots. I assume that the OS map is definitive, but in the end I used BikeRouteToaster because it was able to display and route on the Open Street Map with Cycle route additions - the Open Cycle Map. It turns out that BikeHike can show the Open Cycle Map but not route along it. In the end I produced two routes for Day 1 and Day 2 of my journey. From the routing data day 1's predicted distance was 158Km with an elevation gain of 514 metres and day 2's predicted distance was 170Km and an elevation gain of 233 metres So my decision to break the journey in Boston seemed like a good decision.
Having sorted out tickets and routes I then booked hotels on Saturday afternoon - a just in time principle. I used to live in Beverly which is close to Hull, but as I was 4 at the time never really bothered about hotels. Because I my train was arriving in Hull at around 22.50 a quick Internet scan and I chose the Royal Hotel which was adjacent. This would mean I would not need to navigate the streets of Hull late on a Sunday night looking for my hotel - even with a SatNav it was not something I wanted to do after a 4 hour train journey. Although they had an Internet booking facility I rang and was quickly sorted without having to give my credit card details and assured that my bike would be locked away in a conference room overnight. I would look pretty silly starting a 200mile cycle ride only to have my bike stolen before I started. A similar scan of Boston and the more "quaint" hotel turned out to be somewhat expensive for B&B so I turned to a chain - Premier Inn which I booked over the Internet, it was on the outskirts but seemed OK . I have stayed in many hotels around the world from 5* through to Japanese business hotels so it would be interesting to compare old world with new world.
Then I packed - I have Super C Carradice panniers which are really good, waterproof, fairly large and which clip easily to the rear rack on my bike(s). As this was supposed to be light touring I only took one with me. First things - multi-tool, chain link removers, three spare inner tubes and tube patches, assorted zip ties, pump, bicycle lock and at the last minute a small screwdriver. My son had used the pannier recently and moved one of the clips, I moved it back and packed the screwdriver I used - just in case! These all went in a pocket at the back. I also took a front light with me, in case I had to cycle around Hull late at night (or indeed other parts of the route if I were delayed by repairs.)
For clothes I took one pair of socks, one pair of sandals (my Keen sandals designed for cycling and comfortable for 100 miles/160Km of cycling), a thin t-shirt, a thicker cycling t-shirt, a long-sleeved cycling top, an ordinary t-shirt, thin fleece, pair of Endura MTB shorts and one pair of Lycra shorts (plus underwear). I also took fingerless cycling gloves, long gloves a fluorescent waterproof top and water proof legging and my helmet. I figured I would be spending most of the day cycling and at this time of year shorts are fine. There was only one evening where I had time so the MTB shorts were fine and a backup for cycling. I also packed two packs of Jelly Babies and some chocolate that I had been given for Father's day by my daughter. I also stuck a couple of water bottles on the bike.
In terms of gadgets I took my Garmin GPS plus charger and phone (which also has a GPS but pretty poor) and charger, small speedo, wallet with money and credit cards and booking details for the train and hotels. I also marked up photocopies from a map book of the route just in case my GPS let me down. (And of course the railway tickets including that important reservation ticket for my bike. There were some Lincolnshire tourist websites with cycling route information, but they did not print very well and so I left them behind.
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