2009-Jul-06 by Gregory Williams.

I followed Regional Cycle Route 75 for most of the day and National Cycle Route 5 for much of the remainder. The weather is noticably cooler, which is good, but I also had some light rain for a fair amount of my journey.

I made reasonable progress, so arrived at tonight’s accomodation a couple of hours earlier than planned. So I’ve been making good use of the WiFi connection to catch up on my mapping backlog. I’m now part way through entering data from day 13. Almost all of my NCR3 data has now been entered. So those watching OpenCycleMap should see quite a bit extra appear in this week’s update on approx Thursday / Friday.

It’s quite strange watching the TV and seeing each of the different regions. I was getting quite used to watching the South West region’s coverage, then yesterday I was in the Midlands region. Now today I’m in the North West region. It was great to see signs mentioning North Wales, Manchester, Warrington, and Runcorn today reminding me that I really am making northward progress now. By the end of the working week I’ll be in Scotland, but it’ll take me quite a bit longer to reach John O’Groats yet!

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2009-Jul-05 by Gregory Williams.

Today has been a very eventful day of cycling. Fairly soon after setting off I discovered an unexpected portion of Regional Cycle Route 49. I didn’t want get distracted by it so early in the day, so only surveyed the first few metres of it before continuing on my planned journey.

A few miles further on the route passes through the delightful Wyre Forest. It’s a peaceful setting. The first part of the route follows the path of a former railway that passed through the forest. This is then followed by using some bridleways. Within the forest I encountered the first of many Mercian Way statues that I’d see on my trip today. National Cycle Route 45 is also known as the Mercian Way.

After leaving the forest I reached the village of Upper Arley. The preserved Severn Valley Railway passes through the village. By chance I met another cyclist whilst cycling over a bridge over the railway, adjacent to the station. He explained that nearby Bridgnorth, further up the line, celebrates a ’40s day each year where people dress up in costume. That day happened to be today. There were a number of people in costume on the station platform and in the village.

The cycle route then veered away from the railway for a few miles before running adjacent to it further up the valley. Whistles from the trains could be heard frequently though, even when away from the line. When beside the line I took a photo of the train approaching. I passed some members of the Home Guard patrolling along beside the track before the cycle route left its route.

The next section of route used a number of bridleways. Unfortunately though some of these are quite overgrown, so I had to walk my way through parts. I was confident that I was on the correct route though as there was good signing only metres away.

At Bridgnorth I took a break from following NCR45 and followed a B-road to near Telford. I picked up NCR55 here, the Silkin Way. This passes through the heart of Telford mainly following the path of a former railway. Telford appears to have quite a substantial cycle network. Judging from the data showing on my GPS however we’ve still got quite a bit to be mapped here. It looks like it will be quite an enjoyable place to map. So, if anybody in OpenStreetMap feels like organising a Telford mapping party for some time after I complete my trip then I’ll try to attend it.

This evening I discovered a great Indian restaurant in nearby Newport. Food cooked beside my table, staff who clearly knew their customers by name, and excellent service and food. All in all a great day.

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2009-Jul-03 by Gregory Williams.

I started out following National Cycle Route 41 to Gloucester. NCR45 soon shared the route as well. In Gloucester I left the cycle routes, but then became quite lost. I eventually found my way out and made the journey through Worcester and eventually to Stourport-on-Severn mainly on A- and B-roads.

There was a very slight rain first thing this morning, but the promised “proper” rain never materialised. So today turned out to be quite a hot day once again. Tomorrow’s forecast shows a reasonable chance of rain. I have a fair amount of climbing tomorrow, so I hope that it materialises.

I’ve got the luxury of a WiFi connection again this evening. So I’ve managed to catch up on the data entry backlog a bit more. There’s now about 10½ days of backlog, bearing in mind that I’ve also created another day of data today (but I think most, if not all, of today’s data is already mapped…luckily).

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2009-Jul-03 by Gregory Williams.

Pretty early on in today’s cycling I followed the Strawberry Line cycle route, which follows the path of a former railway. The railway used to run through to Cheddar, but I joined it further north at Winscombe.

In Easter’s training ride from Fishguard to Canterbury I followed National Cycle Route 4 through Bristol. Considering that the city houses Sustrans’s head office I was surprised at how badly signed it was. I lost quite a bit of time to figuring out which way to head. My original plan for this trip was to follow a route through Bristol, but in the light of Easter’s experience I adjusted the route to skirt around to the west of the city using country lanes. This I’m pleased to say is well signposted.w

I’m pleased to say that tonight’s accomodation has got WiFi Internet access. So I’ve been catching up on entering some of my mapping data. Unfortunately the Internet access in Princetown a few days ago wasn’t working. So I’m currently about 12 days behind in entering the data.

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2009-Jul-03 by Gregory Williams.

A large amount of today’s cycling was spent following the National Cycle Network along canal towpaths. Thus much of the riding was pretty flat. At one point I met a couple of cyclists who wondered whether they may borrow an allen key from me to adjust the height of a saddle. In return they added to my sponsorship.

I couldn’t find any evidence of signing for the Burnham-on-sea to Brean cycle route. It looks like it would have been across the sand and I didn’t think my heavily laden bike would cope that well on the surface I saw. So I resorted to my backup plan instead.

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