It is amazing that you can post on the forum the night before and six others comes along for a cold ride.
The weather was just brilliant, sunny (though a bit low a times) and nice and fresh (which some would have called blooming freezing) and six wonderful people out for a ride with you.
The plan was to head straight to the pub but the consensus quickly turned to tea and cake, it is a yacf ride after all. A stop in Hampton Court coffee room with hot chocolate for me and tea and coffee for the others. With scones and a chocolate brownie which you would be hard pressed to put more chocolate into, and the odd slice of cake.

Then we headed straight to Cobham and The Running Mare where we had wonderful food, some more than others I’m looking at you Jane :) My Shepherd’s Pie was numnum with veggies that were cooked just perfect. Peli’s mushroom pasta thing was very creamy and tasted of mushrooms. How do I know this? Well I had what she couldn’t eat, burp :)
The ride back was through unknown territories for me and others, what looked on the online maps to …

Last year took us to Scotland (Grand tour of Edinburgh) , Wales (3 wet days loop), Surrey Hills (3 days tour with TEA), Isle of Wight (one small wet ride), Pyrenees (more up hills than you can shake a stick at) and Denmark (flatter than flat rides) and a few more day trips and pootles here and there.

Well, nearly. I have seen, and been let to believe, that the streets of London will be deserted on 25th of Dec. But they were not. Well, I suppose they were pretty empty compared to a normal Sunday morning.
But the sun was out and we had a nice 28+ miles pootle around town. We didn’t have to worry about anything other than tourists walking around photographing the empty streets. Plenty of pubs, restaurants and cafes were open in the centre of town. And of course every corner shop worth its weight in gold, e.g. cashing in on the “feed the little one some candy while out on a walk” and the “oh feck I forgot x, y, z, quick down to the shop” shoppers.
Oxford Street was total naked of its normal red snake of buses stretching from end to end (well, as far as the crowd and buses will let you see). We had a little stop on Oxford Circus, where we and other cyclists and tourists were busy taking pictures of the car-free zone. All the cyclists we saw were clearly out enjoying the sun and the empty streets: a cycling utopia.
Even Old Compton Street in Soho was dead …

You came into my life in the summer of ’95.
I had to spend all my pocket money just to get hold of you. After a lot of mmm’ing and aaarrr’ing I settled for a Principia MTB for various reasons, built locally by hand by fellas who went to the same university as I did back then, and very light. But, above all, I just fell in love with you at first sight since you looked so beautiful, gunmetal grey and no other distracting colours or patterns, just simple and clean. Which I haven’t always kept you and hence your name: ‘Dirty Pia’.
At first I kitted you out with some basic gear. As I saved up, you got new wheels, tyres and XT groupset. And you really came into life and the wonderful frame you have just took the beating I gave you without a moan.
I’m sorry that I haven’t been the nicest of owners but you have always had a place in my heart. I had to give you a new front wheel when we got broad-sided by a Parisian car driver who didn’t look. The broken front brake, along with the scar for life I gave you, when I …

A request for Google to create maps for the best cycling routes in any particular area has been posted on their “Suggest It” page.
Let’s try to make this a happen!
Here’s how you can help:
A.
-Go to http://maps.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=suggestions.cs
-Scroll down the list to the Route Information section
-Click the “Suggest It” button after the last choice
“Add bike trail information and biking directions”.
B. Write to the discussion forums on Google
Some suggested talking points:
Bicycle Maps on Google will help locate safe and friendly streets for cyclists to plan their commutes.
More people will use the dedicated bike/ped facilities if they can map the in locations and connections.
Transit maps often indicate walking routes to and from terminals/stops – but not cycling routes, which vastly increases the range of travel for cyclists. Bicycle maps should be integrated with the transit maps.
This was taken from http://errcmagazine.com via touring.bikelist.org

Description: (From their site) Three stars family hotel – restaurant Trogirski Dvori is one of those hotels in Trogir with the longest tradition. Hotel is situated at about one kilometer form the center of Trogir and three kilometers from the Airport Split. Hotel is ideal for business people who need to stay overnight, and for families with children. Four hundred meters long pebbly and sandy Pantana Beach is a hundred meters away from the Hotel, on the estuary of small Pantan River.
Site visited: 15th of September 2009.
Yes it is easy to become blinded by the simplest things after have been camping for a week. But this hotel is great, the welcome, the service and the size of the room we got says it all.
After a quick search on in internet for a hotel near Split airport we found hotel Trogirski Dvori. We then emailed them to find out if they had a way of getting two bike boxes to the airport early in the morning, they promptly replied we have a mini bus so no problem.
We arrived a day before our booking to check if it was possible to “use” their mini bus for picking up our bicycles …

Hello Granny (gear).
We got up nice an early to a damp morning and cooked up some tea and porridge. We took our time but 1.5 hours later we were ready to hit the road, as we where heading out I over heard a little girl talking to her dad.
The dad was calling the child down from the sculpture garden where she was playing. The whole campsite is covered in sculpture of horses, deer and bulls, for the kids to play on. She came running down and grabbed his hand and said that she had just been up milking the cow. To which the dad said “I hope you didn’t milk the bull!” :)
The route took us south from Devils Bridge to Tregaron and then up and over couple chevrons to Beulah, one of them was 25%, fecking eh. Peli managed to do the climb with one stop, I stopped to have a rest and let a car go by. I started again but soon gave up and walked the last bit, which is quite hard with a fully loaded bike. On one of the other steep bits I was plodding away in my granny and was not looking where I …

Save your energy.
Traveling in true Peli and woolly style we hunted for maps on the day of departure. And while doing so I had a wee bit of panic since the maps didn’t show a road where google maps told me there was. So I spend an hour in Borders book store with 3-4 maps spread out on the floor comparing scale and routes. But after seeing the mountain roads in Wales and a look at very detailed map, I got a funny feeling that the road which wasn’t there would have been there and fine to ride along. If that makes sense.
With some train changes we arrived in Machynlleth in the dark, but we found the campsite, Llwyngwern Farm, very easily. Hunted around in the muddy field and found the least wet pitch we could find and made for bed. Only to be woken up a few times during the night by the owls twitting away ;) I wonder if they were following Stephen Fry?
We got up at around 8am and cooked up a storm on our newly acquired Jetboil. The menu was two teas, porridge with raisins and some quick noodles. Nom.
After packing up we headed to the …

Description: (From their site) Fforest Fields is a secluded seven acre rural caravan campsite a few miles from the market town of Builth Wells in central Wales. It is well drained and almost level with generous grass and hardstand pitches served by a circuit road. It is landscaped with lots of trees to provide shelter and screening. There is a central looblock with free power showers, which is always kept pristine.
Site visited: 30th of August 2009, 9th of April 2010.
As seen on the blog: Here be Dragons, Chapter II : Hello Granny (gear), The roads have gone pots.
We arrived around 1700 after a long day cycling in the wet, wet as a wet thing, to find this beautiful site. The reception empty and we were not sure what to do. A fellow camper told us to look out for a white 4×4 or just do as they did put the money in the honesty box. We filled in our details and left an envelope with our money in the box and went out searching for a pitch.
We were in the showers 20 min later, the joy of a tent with colour coded poles etc ;). The shower and toilet were …

Description: (From their site) Riverside camping site with loos, showers, hot & cold water. 3 miles North of Machynlleth. Next to the Centre for Alternative Technology. On Sustrans route No8. Great mountain biking nearby, Cli-machx trail, Mach 1, 2 & 3. Aberdovey and seaside 9 miles. Cader Idris 6 miles. Open Mid-April to Mid-October
Site visited: 28th of August 2009.

As seen on the blog: Here be Dragons, Chapter I : Saving your energy.
After booking via email and was told that it was ok to arrive late on a bank holiday weekend. We were met with a grumpy reception, moaning that it was a bank holiday.
We managed to find a spot without ankle deep mud in the dark and pitched our tent.
The facilities were basic and a bit run down. There was a wc and a shower in the mens and ladies. And two sinks outside for washing your dishes with running hot water. Just what you needed. We didn’t try out the showers but looked like they would do the job.

We woke up to find a nice view over the river, which we had heard in the dark. The site was a bit of mud field, but when dry this place …