Sheffield Leeds 75km

I am in love with Yorkshire now
Lovely hills and fields and fluffy clouds
Route a bit random, lack of maps, but ended up beautiful and quite straight
I wouldnt have thought I could like hills so much really
Wind but from the west so it was fine
The whole trip went very smoothly. My brakes suffered a bit today, as last year along the jurassic coast. Tires still fine.
Had very little rain compared to forecast.
I recommend Yorkshire strongly.
forgot phone in Sheffield dont try to call me

getting out from Sheffield

clouds!

monkey puzzle 6

clouuuds

argh

I stopped abruptly on an A road to take this picture

Newark Sheffield 89km

today I crossed sherwood forest
didnt see robinhood
fairly headwindy
cloudy except for some sun in late afternoon
very nice hills
steep sometimes for a change
again 2 monkey puzzles today am happy
this was a short stage am not tired could have done more
rather complicated approach to sheffield
I hope the northern wind will abate tomorrow

monkey puzzle 4

monkey puzzle 5

Sheffield

Stamford Newark 95km

rode through a big grey cloud all day long
hilly at times
strong headwind
whimsical bbc radio 4
reached newark at about 4 quite tired but happy still

carpet of cherry flowers

monkey puzzle 3

cherry!!

Cambridge Stamford 115km

peterborough around 1pm
rather sunny a bit windy
saw two monkey puzzles
one handkerchief tree
many amazing laburnums
weird-coloured maples
a cathedral
people kayaking on the nene
am sunburnt, unexpected
in Stamford at 6pm

laburnum!!

rapeseed and sky

monkey puzzle 1

allotments, Peterborough

handkerchief tree, copper beech, cathedral

monkey puzzle 2

looming sky, leaning tree

Burghley House

Cambridge - Leeds

Here is the route. I will start on Sunday and arrive on Wednesday, hopefully! Four days is a long time for this relatively short distance, but I expect some sound headwind... and some rain, of course. Most ominous weather forecast since I've begun touring.
I will probably blog on my Kindle, which means that it will be terse, stern and sadly pictureless at first. But I will add pictures later, I promise.
 

Checklist:

- 2 spare inner tubes
- spanner
- pliers
- plastic tire levers (not steel ones, they damage the rims)
- good air-pump (they really vary in quality)
- one brake cable
- one derailleur cable
- oil+rag
- a compass in case the sun is hidden (cf weather forecast...)
- some maps in case the compass is not enough
- no GPS (that's cheating)
- no gun (that's cheating)
- camera
- MP3+headphones
- Kindle 3G
- some clothes, duvet, soap, etc.
- oatcakes, milk-chocolate digestives, bananas
- money to buy more oatcakes, etc
- some whisky in case it's very cold and rainy and hilly
- water in case there's no whisky left
- a touring bike (slightly heavy, yes, but tough) and two snobbish Ortlieb satchels
- a lock (preferably with two keys, the spare one if of no use in a drawer when you're touring)
- a pen and some paper for the conference