Planning

The planning continues, albeit with a few hiccups. I've struggled to get gpx files out of bikeroutetoaster.com before, so didn't even go there this time. I was recommended wheresthepath.com but unfortunately every time I logged in the site had exceeded the allowed daily downloads of map tiles (it's restricted by the OS - for copyright reasons I imagine). A bit of searching turned up a site that was vaguely familiar; maptogps.com, and finally, this worked. I plotted the route for day 1 from home to the first campsite, a distance of about 78 miles and then managed to download the route to my Garmin gps unit. And it seems to work! That's the good news. The bad news is that I seem to have lost the route from my pc - it's not saved anywhere that I can find - so I can't edit it or even check it to draw on my paper map. But that's a minor niggle; I've got the main towns and villages noted and it *should* be logical. For the next ones I'll plot the route as I go to avoid the risk of losing them too.

As for the hardware, I took the Dawes to Halfords for a service the other day; walking out holding my bike helmet was rather like going into the vets with a dog and coming out with just the lead. I didn't want to have to hand my bike over but simply don't have time to do it. And let's face it, it's done over 7,000 miles from new and no doubt deserves a bit of TLC.

It was a revelation cycling to work and back on my road bike; downhill wasn't any faster, which was interesting but the uphills were a breeze; how wonderful to waft up hills with so little effort.

The other problem with turning in the Dawes is what's in it; I found the Garmin unit with no problems but it needs two AA batteries - and where are my spare batteries? In my panniers of course, spares for the bike lights... Luckily found a pair with a bit of life left in them, which will do to get the route onto the Garmin. I've only ten days left to finalise the planning and packing and of the two weekend days left, I've a wedding to attend on Saturday (which am looking forward to very much). Time is, as ever, tight.

The packing will hopefully not take too long and the charging pack for phone and ipod is done already; the Portapow (a USB recharging pack) arrived in the post and has already charged up the phone successfully. This time I've packed the relevant leads as I managed to forget to pack a very important USB lead on my last trip, necessitating an unplanned detour to a local PC World.