BLOG: Wales

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Preamble

Sometime during my third bike tour I realized that I was a bit of a ' strange duck' at the bed and breakfast (B&Bs) that I stayed at. At breakfast people would pepper me with questions about my trip like I was Sir Edmund Hillary, climbing a summit. It had been my habit for some time not to socialize while on tour. I would of course be polite to all making inquiries, but I would not go out of my way to be chatty.

So it followed that one morning while I was pedalling down a quiet country lane that I started to wish that I could camp in the trees and listen to the wind. The seed was planted. I was getting tired of paying the ever escalating fees charged by the B&B operators. Usually it was value for the money, but all too often the lovely rooms had beeen chopped up to put in an 'en suite' toilet. For the few minutes I spend in there daily, I am happy to walk down the hall and save a few Pounds.

When I got back home I started checking out my options and putting out feelers. I went to my favourite shop, Mountain Equipment Coop to look at their bivies. I could barely get in to the thing and I was highly claustrophobic.

As usual I went to the internet and posted a question on Bike Forums. Someone suggested I check out the Hennessy Hammock web page. For the next few weeks I browsed through what appeared to be the entire site as well as most of the links. I never thought I'd even look at a hammock. I bought one once in Mexico, but they caused me sever back aches because the spine is bent.

The Hennessy is asymmetrical, so you actually lie slightly across the hammock and much flatter. You also lie below the cross line so it is much more stable and there is a insect screen to protect you from the nasties.

The most unusual feature by far is the way you get in and out. It is through the bottom. There is a 'birth canal' fitted with a Velcro closure. You open the opening, sit down inside the hammock and then just fall back. As you raise you feet, the opened automatically seals together with the Velcro closures.

At the same time as I bought the hammock, I also purchased the 'Snakeskins'. This is an unusual of highly convenient device to assist you with breaking camp. Once installed, all you must do to get ready to leave is detach any guide wires, remove all belongings from the hammock and then slide the two snake skins each one to the centre from their storage position at the end of the hammock on the guide wires, along the length of the hammock to the centre. With some practice this will become easy. I suggest watching the Hennessy video a few times first.

Any one who has tried to camp beside a motor home knows why. Why do we have to bike several kilometres (usually uphill) to camp in a tourist ghetto known as a camp ground?

Once there you will be treated like any other Winnebago and assigned a tree-less plot with electricity, water and a pump out. Your neighbour next door fires up the generator to run the air conditioner and the freezer. Later that night you will be lulled to sleep with sounds of TVs, cell phones and loud versions of 80s punk rock.

Would it not make much more sense to start to scope possible sites in early evening, then have some supper, tuck yourself into the closest pub for a selection of Real Ale and then sometime before closing, head back to the best site and set camp for the night.

My interest in stealth camping began several years ago. It wasn't until I purchased a Hennessy hammock in 2004 that I was finally liberated. It weighs a kilo. That and a down sleeping bag easily fit into a small waterproof bag that sits on the rear rack between my panniers.

I've always dreaded sleeping on the ground. It probably comes from my years of camping with my dad. His experience with camping came from the British Army. For that reason my memories are flavoured with the smell of musty canvas and mosquito coils.

I remember those sleepless nights under canvas just waiting for the next mosquito attack. I was sleepless because I always seemed to sleep on tree roots. Later we added air mattresses, but they weren't all that good and seemed to somehow deflate in the middle of the night leaving me sleeping on even worse tree roots, because I hadn't been as careful finding the 'comfy spot' the night before.

Fast forward to the present. I've decided to start touring with far less support than before. Part of this is to start camping instead of heading for a B&B or motel every night. As satisfied as I usual am with my accommodation, experience has shown me that I should not always rely on others for accommodation.

The first time I experienced this was when I did my tour from Windsor, Ontario to Toronto. The first leg of my tour had me following the Chrysler Trail from Windsor to Leamington. After that, I was on the road and I soon discovered that there was precious little in support between Leamington and Port Stanley. In fact on my route there was only one motel and as I discovered it was not open until season, a week later. The owner took mercy on me and allowed me to stay just one night.

Years later, when I was doing Cornwall and the Devon moors, I often found that I was ready to rest at different times that the usual stops at county towns. That is when I started thinking about camping. As much as I hated the idea of a tent, it was better that being stuck somewhere without any support.

I posted this quandary on one of the Internet bike forums and soon got some great advice: Try a Hennessy Hammock. Tom Hennessy has designed an unusual hammock. I think of hammocks as something we buy while we are in Mexico. They are unstable, because you lay above the centre point and your neck is bowed forward because they hang.

NOT! The Hennessy Hammock works in an entirely different way. You hang below a centre truss. It is asymmetrical, in that it doesn't require you to lay perpendicular to the hammock. Also like a tent it has a mesh screen protecting you from the nasty bugs. To protect you from the elements there is a waterproof fly.

That said, are we ready for the worst?

I camped freely using the hammock in the summer of 2004. Sometime in the autumn, I started to realize that overnights were somewhat less comfortable than they were in summer. The very nature of the hammock attracts warm temperature sleeping as you are cooled at all sides. What happens when you don't want to be cooled?

Back to the Hennessy web site. Others had concerns about this also and Tom Hennessy was already working on it. Linking to other sites experimenting with cold weather hammocking allowed me to see what others had learned. Some of the information proved to be correct from my own experiments. Like much information available through the internet, not everything was factual.

From my experiments there are at least three factors to consider when cold weather camping in a Hennessy hammock.

First consider what you are wearing. Not every material provides sufficient insulation. Second think about the kind of sleeping bag you are using and what kind of rating it has and third be aware that we reflect much of our body heat, so how will we reflect this heat back to our body.

I've been conducting experiments using the Hennessy hammock since autumn of 2004. These things I have found to be true: *Clothing made of synthetic fleece is an excellent insulator and is less likely to be compressed while sleeping. *Synthetic fleece is light weight and therefore excellent choice for bike touring *Foil reflects the body heat back to the body *Goose down in a sleeping bag is an excellent insulator *Down compresses very well and therefore is an excellent choice for bike touring

for this service.

Cardiff Airport, Wednesday, October 4, 2:30am It's dark. It is 16 kms to Cardiff and I want to follow a bike trail. I reassemble the bike and head for the exit. There is one guard so I ask for recommendations. He says that the bike trail is unlit and suggests because it is so late that I bike on the usually heavily traveled roadway. I look out the window and agree. I've never been here before, so traveling on a bike path through a wilderness area in the middle of the night may not be an option. I take his advice and head out to the A highway. Traffic is very light, and within about 40 minutes I'm in Cardiff. As I am biking along I'm looking for places to kip or just have a short rest until dawn. Wales as with the rest of the United Kingdom doesn't have too much spare land for me to stealth camp in. It gets much worse in big cities. The introduction to Cardiff comes at a roundabout. A roundabout is a unique English invention that allows traffic from a number of arterial roads to come together on a connecting circular roadway and be dispersed onto the next road without the necessity of stopping (usually) or a traffic light (sometimes). In the middle of this particular large traffic circle was a heavily wooded area. Within 20 minutes, I was in my hammock and resting. Quite unaware of the traffic nightmare that was to come/ I awoke to the loud tunes of lorries. It makes sense I'm camping in the middle of a roundabout. Well perhaps at 3:00 in the morning there was not much traffic, but at 7:00 there was a lot of traffic. So much so that crossing the roundabout to the outer perimeter seemed almost impossible.

Downtown Cardiff, Wednesday, October 04 910:00am

I've never prayed out loud before when cycling. I was looking into the face of a painful and miserable death and I needed guidance from a deity. Once I did get over to the outer perimeter of the traffic circle, I then had some choices. I made the wriong one. It said downtown Cardiff. It didn't say it was a 2 lane wide ditch with no space on the sides where 20 tonne lorries were travelling down a hill at 150 kms per hour. There was no turning back. My only hope was to reduce the difference in speed between the me and the trucks by pedalling like hell. I took the first exit and then after passing by the football field I found a safer route to downtown and the Taff Trail.

Ponypridd (pronounced pontiprith), Wednesday, October 04

It is the longest day. With only a couple of hours sleep, I'm here, part way up the Taff Trail, following a bike route up the side of the hill to end all hills at Castell Koch.

6:00, October 5th, miles from anywhere, South Wales

I'm sitting in the non-smoking bar of a tony pub called the Chef and Brewer. Obviously English owned as they have a good selection of English Ales on engine (Real ales, hand pumped usually from the cellar at cellar temperature. I start with Well's Bombardier. As a real ale it really rocks. You can't get a better traditional ale than that. Obviously dry-hopped as the nose is aromatically hopped with alphas.

I'm tucked in down the road, off onto the railtrail, up an embankment, with one end of the hammock tied to a maple tree. Quite appropriate I thought. The locals take their turn having a look at me. I have a secret and I'm not sharing it. Part of stealth camping is not telling anyone. If forced, otherwise it might be rude, I explain that stealth camping is just that. If I told anyone, it would no longer be stealth camping. Also, there is a certain danger letting anyone know you are alone in the woods. Secrecy is safety. It also adds to the pleasure. I knowing smile comes over my face. I know something they do not. .

I'm not sure if while I was in the pub someone tried to breach my lock. It may have been here, it may have been that night when the alarm went off on my bike, or it might have been in Cardiff, but later on I discovered that the sheath covering the woven steel part of my Stock Lock had been sawed at. The lock has a 20 minute street rating so most thieves give up after 2 minutes. This guy had at it a good 2 minutes worth. .

Thursday, October 06, Mejor, South Wales.

A breakfast of seeds, nuts and porridge and I'm off to Newport and the Transporter Bridge. City fathers couldn't decide on a ferry or suspension bridge across the river so they agreed on a French designed hybrid; a ferry suspended above the water by a suspension bridge.

Sustrans became a problem today. Normally I praise the group that is responsible for all the rail trails and tow path trails and the national cycle routes. Today between Newport and Chepstow they showed their worst. First, the area around and between the afor mention cities is all aging industrial land. Lorries (large transport trucks) rule, and Sustrans deserve praise in their effort to separate me from the lorries. The problem is that there are still often large spaces separating the safe routes from the very unsafe routes and when you are on the latter, in a stressed state, there is absolutely no indication that you are heading in the right direction. The markers disappear on the road and the maps are not sufficiently detailed to navigate without the markings. Ordnance Survey (OS) to the rescue.

Sadly, I had no maps of Wales other than the Celtic Trail map from Sustrans, so I used my compass and my common sense and ended up meeting the trail again. On this subject, I would suggest marking destinations, direction of trail and route number as often because the trails meander to avoid heavily used roads, it is possible to rejoin routes and head in the wrong direction.

Bicycle touring is actually all about self reliance. When I tell people about my trips they say 'I couldn't possibly do that.' or I'd be afraid.' Ten years ago I could not have done what I'm doing now. You work your way into bicycle touring like you do mountain climbing. You don't start with Everest. Each small adventure is a lesson learned. Add up the lessons and you will feel comfortable at the natural level of skill you have achieved. If you do not, you are advancing to quickly. Start with an overnighter at a B&B. Work into a week or two. Add a hammock and try an overnighter. Start cooking your food on a camp stove at home, then take it on an overnighter. Learn stealth camping. When you proceed at a natural pace it is exciting and fun. Fear is not conducive to fun.

October 08, 2005, Caldicot, Wales

The first entry in my diary reads

'Bicycle touring is all about self reliance. It's where you show how self-reliant you are or wish to be.'

There are moments when touring is the most exhilarating thing a human can enjoy. When you are one with machine and creation there is nothing more satisfying or enjoyable. Those times have been many so far on this trip. being away from traffic has allowed me time to think, you might even say meditate. The golden sunny moments on tow paths or rail trails has been etched in my mind. Sleeping in the forests has been an experience I will never forget.

I started sleeping in my hammock with it tied to the deck at the rear of my house in the city. I got a little experience stealth camping with it when I went on my mini-tours. What I never expected was the feeling that when I camp I am completely away from civilization. I would caution first timers to get a few nights in the woods at home before heading out on a tour.

At this point I have reached the bridge across the Bristol Channel. I can see the cliffs of England several kilometres away. I still love Wales. I love their curious women who seem to travel in groups and are afraid of nothing. I love the accent, and I love the countryside. But, a beer festival and other adventures await me across the bridge.

October 09, Avon Gorge Natural Reserve

The bike trail follows the gorge beside the tidal river to Bristol, often called England's second city. As with many of my routes, the highway and the rail line are never far. In this case there are two rail lines, one on each side of the river. I watch the trains slip by on the tracks on the opposite side and decide the rail line closest must be abandoned. As we get close to Bristol, what I can only describe as portals begin to appear. I count eight and then lose track. They are like bridges that allow access to the opposite side of the track. What is there for the most part is nothing but forest, but I consider each one of them for possible camping sites. The one seventh from the city centre turns out to be the best. It opens into a gorge with a flat floor and high stone walls. I feel instantly comfortable. After thinking back about some dicey campsites (especially near cities), this one seems right. There really is just one access point, it offers both cover and an open space. I opt to set up the hammock behind some deadwood for cover. It is not quite invisible so I take down one side and dress it against a tree and go into town for some beers.

I eat in a park by the bridge about 2 kms away and get a bit disturbed by some lager louts who have come out to drink in the park. The pub is great, with an amazing selection of local beers on tap. Sadly, the publican leaves shortly after I arrive and leaves a German girl in charge. She knows or cares nothing about the beers and since the clients are mostly heavy smoking university students busy with their own conversations, I leave shortly after and return to the site. It is still early so I quaff an ale or two sitting on the banks of the now full river. As sleep comes I retire to my hammock and sleep well until about 2:00 when I am woken by the sound of explosives. I quickly realize it is someone letting off fireworks, but it appears to be very close. If this idiot enters the portal, I might be a sitting duck.

I collect my thoughts and decide to offer a decoy. I drag out my two solar lights and hang them from tree branches on opposite sides of the camp. If the incendiary idiot does show up, he will be attracted by the lights, and not me huddling in the dark. Sometime later I realise that the noise is much further away now and the jerk was probably in a car on the road across the river.

Saturday, October 08, Bristol

Good thing I'm biking through Bristol on Saturday and not a weekday. Add to that, even though Bristol is the headquarters for Sustrans, the routes are vague and poorly marked once I leave the path. I spend the better part of the morning trying to find the Bristol to Bath rail trail. I finally find it by circling the railway station. Even then I get lost again. By the time I make the trail it is almost lunch and attract the attention of a bum. He hangs around but only seems to want a smoke, which I cannot offer. Perhaps it is true that that the homeless can get all the food they need, but it's hard to get a free cigarette. I believe that they are $10 a package.

On the way, I find some Sustrans staff (I talk to a Frenchman), who are fund raising. In a friendly manner I give him my thoughts on how the route marking can be improved.

Sunday, October 09, Bradford-upon-Avon

I had arrived in Bath the night before and found it to be incredibly busy. As it was going to rain I opted for a hotel. The TIC shamelessly charges you 5 Pounds to make a couple of calls. Evidently they have a reputation for overcharging, but afterall, this is Bath, so you have to get soaked.

I went to a 9:30 Bath at the Abbey. The bishop sits in Bristol, so Bath has to make do without a cathedral. On Sunday morning the canal tow path is already crowded with dog walkers and sprawling families. I pass the canal boats as they putt along a 5 miles an hour. It doesn't get much better than this. 'It's like being transported back to 19th century England' I write in my diary.

After lunch I lounge nearby an ancient priory eating lamb and mint crisps (chips). I decided I wasn't leaving and began looking for a campsite. It wasn't easy because besides all the people tramping the tow path, there were people at docked boats along much of the canal. I finally decided on a spot well hidden from the canal and looking onto a pasture. I did a set-up and decided that it was visible so I took one side down and dressed the other end against the back of a tree. I took off for the pub but it was far too smoky so I sat outside. After a while, I went looking for a phone booth and watched the boats lock through. I took a great video of a couple of boats coming out of the lock. Just short of dusk, I set out back to the site. Strangely there were still people wondering by, so I had to go back and forth a few times before I could chance getting in. It was so steep, I had to lock up the bike elsewhere. This may have been one of the places where someone tried to saw off the lock.

Monday, October 10, Devises

Overnight turned out to be cold, and the bank up to the tow path was so steap I had to use my polypropylene rope to get out. But never mind I'm on the tow path to Devises, I nice little town and site of the Wadsworth brewery. I needed a break from camping and a shower, so I have the TIC find me a great B&B on a farm a few kms from town.. The TIC has bike lockers so I lock mine up and spend a few hours exploring the town. The following day I'm planning to leave the towpath and head to Avebury to see the stone circle. I buy a Ordnance Survey map, as I can't get lost and without one I surely will.

Tuesday, October 11, near Marlborough

As tony as Devises was, Marlborough is pretentious. It appears to be full of private schools and expensive shops. I change from tow path to trail trail and as I do, I get lost. I wonder into the area on the wrong side of the tracks but get some good directions from a couple of locals who over the years have had far too many Woodbines, since they are probably unfamiliar with Marlboroughs. They cough and weeze through the explaination but I do find the trail and since it is getting late, I start looking for a possible site. Around Osbourne St. George, I stop at a lookout with a bench. I look down the trail and see a maple tree. I end up going up the side of the bank and camping for the night. After I make supper back at the lookout, I go in search of a pub. The map shows there are a couple nearby but it turns out there is only one and it doesn't open until 7:00.It has been threatening rain all afternoon, and now it actually is starting to rain. I have a couple of beers at the pub and head back to the camp. Overnight it gets quite bad and the wind and rain soak the tent.

Tuesday, October 11, Avebury to Marlborough

As I camp along the rail trail between Marborough and Swindon, I'm catching up with notes on the day. Avebury, and especially the area around Avebury were very interesting. When you get close, it is obvious than man has lived on that very land for a long period of time. Ancient drawing appear on hillsides, other hillsides have been terraces, presumably for some ancient farming technique. This is also the area of crop circles, those mysterious formations in farmers fields. I didn't feel quite comfortable in the village. I had thought about camping there, but the land and the people were strangely inhospitable. Not unfriendly, just, perhaps tired of the tourists on the coaches who must invade their pretty village for much of the year. The stones are simply silent sentinels revealing an ancient past.

It took ancient people (it is estimated) 5 million man-years to produce Avebury. We have been lead to believe that ancient peoples didn't have a lot of spare time.

The woman at the TIC (also a Methodist church on Sunday), directs me to the bike path and soon I am walking the bike over some very inhospitable land. Marlborough is this tony little village full of expensive shops and private school students in quaint uniforms. Of course the TIC is closed, so I start to ask for directions. It is not a good idea to ask bike directions in Marlborough. The residents either are driving their Bentleys or riding their horses. After a while I ask an old lady smoking a cigarette and sitting forlornly on a park bench. Good luck as she neither owns a car or a nag and actually is familiar with the rail trail. Sadly she is under the impression that the trains are still running.

After several kilometres, I reach a spot in a clearing where there is a picnic bench. I stop and start to think this might be a good spot for a camp. About 50 metres up the trail I spot a maple tree. Always a good sign for Canadians. It is quite a hike up but I set up and go back for some supper. After supper I go in search of a pub. The only one in the village doesn't open until 7:00pm

I waited and was not disappointed. Adnam Bitter was on hand pull and the barman had just put it on. It was everything an English ale should be. Fine English Malt, a soft warm and full bodied ale with an explosion of English hop.

Wednesday, October 10, near Swindon

Things get a bit wonky near big cities. Swindon is not an exception. I'm following the rail trail and suddenly it disappears and I'm on someone's lawn. They have a lot of dogs and I feel very uncomfortable. It is not many kilometres on that I meet the trail trail troll in the form of a big old male horse.

There it stood in the middle of the trail. There might as well been fire coming from its' nostrils, it was that malevolent. I observed that it had walked around the trees it was tethered to a few too many times, and managed to get around by walking the bike through a muddy path. It also had an erection, which made me wonder if he got off on attacking lone cyclists. I made a mental note for the way back. I was reminded of the horse by windfall apples when I returned several days later. Reminiscent of some childs computer game, I picked up the magic apples to use later against the troll.

Swindon ended up being a bit of a treat. I would be there for a couple of days, so I took a B&B close to the beer festival. It is a market town and once was the terminus for the Great Western Railway. It still has a railway museum full of charming artefacts. It now also boasts England's Honda plant, so there are lots of lager louts around and lots of hideous vodka bars for them to swill in. There is also a Wetherspoon's in an old cinema. The chain must be lauded (even by Prince Charles) for the preservation of 18th and 19th and even eary 20th century architecture. Wetherspoon pubs restore the outside of what ever building being a cinema or a grain exchange and pretty much gut the inside and make it into a mega-pub with bars on each wall. There are bargains to be had, and if I am found ordering food in a pub it will be one of the specials that include a pint. At under £4 including a pint, the food is a bargain. The beer can be dicey, but check the guest beers and beer festival promotions.

Most of the downtown shopping area is traffic free, so shopping is a real treat. The Wetherspoon's, is very boring and smokey. The CAMRA Good Beer Guide suggests the Duke of Wellington. All the beers are on gravity, so I check it out. It turns out the English team are battling to make it to the World Cup, so I'm mostly ignored.

The beer festival was actually a bit of a disappointment. There were over 80 beers, but some of them were just too weird and others just to a style. I tried a lavender beer. I was looking for a great smell in the nose, instead I think they must have added the lavender in the boil, because there was no nose, just a strange bitter finish.

Friday, October 14, Near Hungerford

Still on the river Avon, the canal at this point is filled in. I found the pub and after quite a look around I've found my camping spot in the bush about 100 metres from the river. I'm up between two stout trees, so stout that I need my extra ropes as extensions. The problem has nevere been not enough trees, but trees that were too wide in girth for my tree huggers. I'm not quite invisible before sundown, So I go to the bridge to cook supper. I'm hoping the visual distraction of a cyclist cooking on the bridge will work.

I head to the pub at 6:00. The beer is good and since I'm the first in the pub, the publican who is new asks me all sorts of questions, including where I am camping. I tell him that it wouldn't be stealth camping if I told him. I don't let on it's a stones throw away.

Saturday, October 15, Newbury

Left the pub around 10:00 with the extra chips I'd ordered and couldn't eat and called Canada. Everything was good, so by 11:00 I'm tucked in my hammock for a great sleep. I woke up around 6:00 and packed up the site and made my way back into Hungerford to find the route to take me to Newbury. After a short burst on some minor roads, the canal is back and I'm following the tow path. I'm no longer on the Sunstrans route, but as I have observed, sometimes you don't have to be. Usually the towpaths lead somewhere and most walkers don't seem to mind sharing them with a slow moving courteous touring cyclist. Near Newbury I'm overtaken by another cyclist who wants to talk. It's Markku, a dentist from Finland. He asks about Canada's Finnish population and tells me he was in Canada once looking for work. I ask him about food stores so he takes me to one then another. In the end I offer to buy him a wine for his trouble and he introduced me to the Lock, Stock and Barrel, a great little pub right beside the lock. Their outdoor terrace made up for their prices. Beer was the London price of £2.75. I had the TIC find me a cheap B&B. It was very cheap, in a small Edwardian terrace house. My hosts were a couple of dotty pensioners. Since they were both active Anglicans, they made a point of finding out service times at the main church.

Sunday, October 16, Thatchbury

Once again the cyclist get kicked off the tow path on to a new bike path taking us through Thatchbury. The town is pretty with a market type central square. I buy food from to COOP store and decide to find the canal and try the tow path back to Newbury. I join up with it near the train station. It is clear biking all the way back, but the trail is narrow and the tree routes are so close to the earth, that a lot of bikes could easily damage them. I get back in town early and decide to check out the other pubs looking on the canal. The Canal Bar looks like Lock, Stock and Barrel, but the beer selection is all on gas and so pitiful that I order a half of Strongbow cider.

Ah, the joy of riparian splendour! The swans, the locks, the children frolicking. Probably the highlight is the Evensong at the main church down by the canal. It starts at 6:00 and the participants are dwarfed by the church.

Monday, October 17, Reading

The rear tire has been trouble for some time, but last night it was flat after I got out of church and I pumped it up to get back to my digs. Sure enough it was flat again the next morning, so I sat in the morning sun and changed the tube. It was flat too, so I went looking for a bike shop. It turns out it had moved and when I find it, it is closed. I go out to the suburbs to find a Helford's (like a Canadian Tire). They do repairs, but I have to bribe the clerk to do the job the same day. I'm off by noon, but when I get to Thatchbury, the bike feels strange, and sure enough the tire is flat yet again. The search is long for the bike shop and it is closed too! I walk to the train station with a dark cloud over my head. A train arrives within 5 minutes and whisks me (more or less) to Reading.

Reading is the first really big city I've been in and I've made it my staging point for Gatwick and the air flight. I inquire about the last flight to Gatwick. It is 11:40 arriving just before 1:00am. My plan is to kip overnight and be at the Zoom airline counter around 6:00 for a 10:00 departure.

There is a bike shop within 5 minutes of the station. They will do the tire right away for £10. The wonky tire has cost me about $50 today. Grumpy!

With my bike propped up beside the picnic table at the Hobgoblin, I'm ready for a few real ales in Reading (pronounced red-ing). The people standing by the door are non-smokers out for some air. It is just the opposite in Toronto. The pubs are non-smoking and the smokers stand outside. I prefer it that way.

So after a few pints outside the Hobgoblin on the High Street, I try both the Wetherspoons. They are both too smokey, even when I sit in the non-smoking section. I make the train in lots of time and find myself at the airport. The last time I slept over there was lots of room, this time, everyone is doing it and there is no private space in the airport, so I walk back to the train station, where I find a private space and end up having a very nice sleep. Before I nod off, a rail employee asks me when I'm getting up, and provides a nice wake-up call. Very civilized these Brits.

Zoom Airline isn't on the departure screen, so I'm delayed in getting ready, but that's okay because I manage a quick breakfast at McDonald's. I always take my bike with me now, even in the toilet, because the British airport cops, who are heavily armed, consider bikes left luggage and are willing to take it and explode it if you leave it for even a second.

The worst is yet to come: Within a few minutes I will have my bike stolen from me, and even though I was suspicious of the circumstances, it will be almost a week before I see it again.

An adventure for the history and beer lover

An unsupported bicycle tour of Wales & England Cardiff to Reading