Pennine Cycleway Route 68 with Coffee Sock Trev

350 miles Derby to Berwick upon Tweed, via a hilly network of quiet lanes, dismantled railway, canal towpaths and forestry tracks.

I rode Genesis Fortitude (left) single speed 44/21 on 60mm slicks. Trevor, Surly Troll 1 x 12, knobblies & flat pedals. Looked front-heavy, rode like a dream, I find you quickly adjust to such idiosynchrasies, such that unladen felt weird after.

I packed as light as I dare and actually got it right as I would use the same packing list again for a multi-day self-supported bike trip. 3 dehy dinners and 2 puddings as contingency is plenty with pubs en route. We resupplied snackage with one Aldi stop (nuts, cheeses, fruit, macaroons). My homemade meths stove with 500ml of bio-ethanol was more than enough for brew-stops and the rehy din dins.

We rode 40 miles/day on average which was ideal, given the setups. We discounted preplanning the whole route with programmed overnights as initially we considered the Pennine Bridleway making such logistics stressful given the range of terrain and gradients (we actually tried a short and brutal section of this but after a pannier rattling downhill followed by a steep push uphill we bailed back onto Route 68).

The feel of an open-ended day became fundamental to the relaxing vibe of the trip and we were pleased to be free of the pressure of ‘must make it to here by nightfall’.

Structure of our days: got up 7, riding by 8 (no breakfast even though I eat breakfast at home), brew-stop in a cool spot, full English in a café, pint of ‘sports’ drink in a pub (putting more £ into local economy), wild lunch, pub dinner then camped after dark (which we subsequently noticed was then too cold for the midges).

7 x 1:50 OS maps with the route highlighted (with highlighter oddly) was ideal for navigating tricky sections and on-the-hoof planning (ortlieb map case bungeed to front pack). I posted these home from Alston and bought further mappage). A slight teething trouble was my inexperience in judging progress across a map by bicycle resulting in 2 hours in to our epic journey we were back in Derby, I hadn’t noticed the sun on our back instead of our left, so we had veered east instead of north.

The reservoir trail north of Glossop where the views become more exciting

Howgill Hideaway shower stop aaaaah thank you

Hartside climb is followed by epic 10km downhill to Alston

Thanks to Trevor for inviting me & being great company, I nearly developed a 6 pack from a week of laughing and being stupid. Where next?

Thanks to Paddy at Swale Cycles & Gareth at GC Cycles, for bearings, service, prompt despatch and vital advice to circumvent covid affected supply chain issues of niche components; I wouldn’t have been roadworthy in time without them.