A slight change of plan

It’s taken a while for me – and more importantly, Mrs S – to be sure that I am well enough to do my Big Ride.  We are now into the very short days with the Winter solstice just around the corner.  If I set off now, I would have to spend all the daylight hours in the saddle with very little time left to see places and take the odd picture.

So I’m putting the original Big Ride on hold until Spring.  Instead, I'll do a Not So Big Ride as a sort of precursor. 

I'm revisiting an idea I had in Summer to ride East to West across the country, tracking the sun on the solstice.  But back then, my energy levels were way too low for any kind of extended ride. 

This time, it being as near the Winter solstice as makes no odds, I'll do the ride in the other direction, West to East.  And since this Big Ride thing was always about visiting odd places and writing about them, never about any kind of endurance task, I'll spread it over a few days.  That will give me plenty of time to stop off at a number of odd destinations that have been on my 'must-go-there-some-day' list for quite a while.

(And, conveniently, the Motorcycle Show is on at the NEC in Birmingham!)

The plan is to set off on Saturday to St David’s, the most westerly place in the country, and amble my way ‘left-to-right’ across the country to Lowestoft, the most easterly, reporting on curious places I stop off at on the way.