Cycling Across Britain: Day zero

I’m calling this Day zero because I’m not cycling much today. I’m traveling from London to, or towards, Land’s End. There’s no big news today, but I want to write a little here whenever I can get online.

I’m on the train to Penzance. It’s about 12 miles east of Land’s End. Actually every town in England is east of Land’s End, hence the name. Penzance has the closest train station to Land’s End. I’ll stay in a youth hostel near the station tonight and try to get an early start cycling in the morning.

I’ve been on the train for a little over 3 hours, started at London Paddington. A lot of people boarded, so finding a seat was a game of musical chairs. I was taking off my panniers & folding my bike, so there was no place to sit down. (I chose  not to reserve a seat, when I bought my ticket online, because I like to be by my bike. I don’t know what seats are by the bike storage area on the trains.) I found out later that one car on the train has a locked bike storage area, so I put my bike in there. After that, I had to stand for a while, since no seats, or even much floor space was open. Then I found a drop-down chair, then a cozy window seat. Some teenage girls were a bit loud, so I moved to the quiet car, in a window seat, which is where I am now. Life is good.
As an aside, the train is now stopping in Plymouth. If my history is right, there’s a rock somewhere nearby that has a part in American history.

As I look out the window, I can see the big hills I read about. Cycling from SW Britain to NE Scotland is a little easier because the prevailing winds blow north, but this route does mean a bunch of big hills at the start, ouch. Oh well, no shame in pushing a loaded bike up a big hill.

 

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