Counties Ride

Have been thinking about doing this ride for a while now and put together a plan for it while I was laid up - basically to visit all 40 English county towns. Have written about how it came to be 40 on my website here! Discussed it with Pete West of IBA UK and the format it would have to be recognised as an IBA ride, with certain receipt points at each of the 6 'corners' and particular photographic evidence at a set location in each of the 40 towns. Route would laso have to be circular, with same start and finish point. Came to around 1850 miles so my hope was that it would be possible within 48 hours.

It was, just! Started out at midday on Sunday from Corley services and got back 47 hours and 37 minutes, and 1885 miles later. Had some pretty inclement weather, including terrible rain for first and last couple of hours and a hailstorm near Oxford (nb Aerostich was completely waterproof for first 46 hours!). It was a very hard ride - not very much motorway driving and lots of winding country lanes and traffic. Also spent a lot of time going round one way systems, through pedestrianised areas and struggling to find locations. In some towns I had to find alternative locations to photograph (some, like Guildford Castle, I could not see at night!), and lost a lot of time for this. But it is possible and you certainly get to see England! Shall do a write up about it when I have recovered a bit more and got the BBL out of the way!