Tag: Brooks

The King’s Highway: On the March

On the run up to the trip, I’d had a busy few days at work, and then, two days beforehand I was struck down with a cold. The weather outside was appalling with gusting 50 mile an hour winds, so I retreated to the kitchen, and boxed up my bike in there. Luckily I’d ended up with an enormous bike box from Decathlon, but was it too big? Its length was 195 cm and the length for an oversized bag was meant to be a maximum of 190 cm…


Arriving at the airport in plenty time, I was relieved to see that at 21.2 kg, my box was comfortably under the 23 kg weight restriction, and that seemed good enough for the check in staff. Getting to the oversized baggage point, however, I was momentarily alarmed when asked to match up my 195 cm bike box alongside a 3D template of a 160 cm one. ‘Oh it’s ok, it’ll still go’ I was assured, ‘you just need to take it over to that room at the far end of the hall as it’s too big to go through our scanners’. Whilst I watched another member of staff opening up the box and carefully searching through all of the contents, it did make me think about all the other bike boxes that I’d brought to this airport that would have been too big to go through their scanners…


The two flights went smoothly enough, the final stretch into Amman circumventing Israel by heading further west over Egypt, and then approaching from the South. Rushing around the airport after landing, at midnight, I procured some Jordanian Dinars and a new SIM card before meeting up with the driver of the van who was hopefully going to squeeze a very large bike box in the back. As the driver didn’t speak English, the manager of the hotel had also come along in a car, to meet me off the plane.


Once back at the hotel he pushed me to pay for the return leg as well – as van drivers were difficult to procure – then proceeded to charge me an eye-watering fee given the prices that should have been involved. In my depleted state, I paid what he asked, but I had been totally ripped off. And, as I lay in bed that night, there was no way I could make the numbers add up to what I’d been charged, even if I paid for the ‘van and car’ combination both ways!


Looking at it pragmatically, if I placed a value – to me – of being able to get my bike to and from the airport in the middle of the night, and storing my bike box for a week while I was away, as well as somewhere to stay at the beginning and end of the trip, maybe the manager had achieved that figure. That’s the way I’ll look at it anyway, as long as the van arrives to take me back to the airport next week…

Jordan 2023: The King’s Highway

Up In The Air

At the culmination of my lap of Iceland in the summer, I was asked ‘what’s next’? I quickly responded that somewhere warmer might be nice, like a winter escape to Jordan… And it might be nice, I’ll find out very soon!

Usually, when I’m planning a cycling trip, it develops gradually into a vague outline and a smattering of half-formed ideas, then I book the flights, and quickly those half-formed ideas become a plan. On this occasion, after several months of agonising over which flights to book, a sudden price drop forced my hand, and only then did I think to check out the news flash about the Gaza strip which had just flashed across my phone screen.

From that moment, an air of uncertainty hung over my planning: firstly when British Airways extended the duration of the flights in and out of Jordan, presumably deeming it prudent to take steps to avoid flying directly over a war zone; and secondly when they cancelled my homewards flight, offering up the possibility to postpone my trip until a time when the region appeared slightly less volatile. On considering my alternatives, I quickly realised that I would almost certainly end up claiming a refund on the flights to Jordan, then immediately replace them with cheap flights to Egypt, a country also bordering Israel and the Palestine Territories, but in which I had done no research at all. So, Jordan it was…


Jordan was somewhere that had appealed for many years, my interest piqued by photos of the red sandstone tombs of Petra glowing in the slowly-setting desert sun.
In recent years, the country had positioned itself as a safe haven for adventure in the middle of a turbulent region, so, when I first learned about the Jordan Trail, a mixed terrain mountain biking and trekking route running 400 miles down the middle of the country, I took notice. In calculating my remaining annual leave for the year, it was clear that I didn’t have enough days left to undertake the full thing, but surely I could find something to entertain myself?


In reading about the Jordan Trail route, there was regular mention of a road, ‘The King’s Highway’, an old communication path down the spine of the country, starting in Damascus, Syria, and finishing up at Aqaba on the Red Sea. Regarded as being one of the oldest roads in the world, it was documented in the bible and dotted with Roman ruins and Crusader Castles along its length.


The 250 mile stretch from the Jordanian capital, Amman, to Aqaba appeared to have some of the most impressive landscape features, bisected by the towering gorge of Wadi Mujib, tiptoeing around the edge of the Dana Biosphere Reserve, before descending to the spectacular desert landscapes of Wadi Rum on its final approach to the sea.


Oh, and in case I forgot to mention, it passes Petra along the way..

Iceland 2023: The Ring Road

Back in the Saddle…

When I cycled from Land’s End to John o’ Groats in August 2021, it was a targeted attempt to regain some fitness after a busy few months at work where sporting pursuits had fallen by the wayside. Since then, my main training focus has been running and the culmination of the last few years has been recent PBs in the 5K and Half Marathon of 18:37 and 1:25:40 respectively, and completing my first ever Marathon in Manchester in a time of 3:14:36. So, almost 2 years since LEJOG, I’m definitely fitter than I was, but I haven’t been doing much cycling, so it must be time for another adventure…

Last summer was largely spent working on bikes rather than cycling them, and I finally bought a new bike to replace my battle-scarred Thorn Brevet, the bike that has scaled the Atlas mountains and the Vietnamese highlands, while also rolling past the stunning Oregon coastline along the way. What is the new bike? Well, it’s another Thorn, a Club Tour, a heavier duty tourer with stronger wheels and wider tyres for exploring off the beaten track, perfect for its debut outing along the Fife Coastal Path last September.

So, when I started dreaming about where to travel next, my thoughts turned to the gravel trails of New Zealand and the dirt roads of the Carretera Austral in Chile, but, alas, I have a new job, and not enough holidays to spare, so I started to think of somewhere similar, but closer to home. An active volcanic landscape, sparsely populated, and only a two hour flight. That’ll be Iceland.

For those who have followed my previous tours, you’ll have spotted that I do like a good, old-fashioned, point to point route, they tend to look good on maps, and offer the greatest rate of change of landscape and culture. But, my second favourite is definitely a loop, and the fact that Iceland has a Ring Road that circumnavigates the whole country is almost as good! When I started to plan the trip I found statistics that suggested that the Ring Road still featured gravel stretches, and that as much as 30% of it could still be gravel. However, more recently I’ve found a more up to date source that shows that it has now been tarmacked all the way round, and now that I know that, it does make a difference to my choice of bike. And, with me being reluctant to take my new bike on a plane as of yet, the old one is being pressed into service once more.

What, then, is the plan? Well, I’ve booked my flights to Reykjavik, and I’ll stay in Reykjavik Campsite on the first night; storing my bike box there for when I return. Then, I’ll set off around the Golden Circle to Geyser and Gullfoss before joining Route 1 – the Ring Road – on the south coast, and following it anti-clockwise around the country. All in all, a distance of around 852 miles and with 16 days to complete it, it’s lucky there’s a lot of daylight…

Oh, and I leave tomorrow, so I’d best get packing!

Lejog Day 3: Liskeard – Crediton

Distance: 55.4 miles

Time: 5:34

Elevation: 4096 feet

The day started well when the campsite owner, Kathryn, brought me over some porridge and a coffee. I was on the road at 10 o’clock and had unfinished business with the climb up to Bodmin Moor.

A brisk descent through Pensilva followed and then another stiff climb up to Golberdon, where my alternative accommodation for the previous evening had been. Down and up again through anonymous country lanes, then another brake-busting descent led to Horsebridge, where a medieval bridge aided my passage to a new county, Devon.

Devon welcomed me with a grinding climb; from 50m Horsebridge to 300m and the edge of Dartmoor. Under the shadow of Brent Tor and its ancient church, I chatted to a cyclist on a few day tour around the moor, laden with four panniers and with a rucksack strapped atop his rack.

The road dropped down to Lydford Gorge, and I stopped at the visitor centre cafe for ice cream and a scone. As I sat preparing my scone on the grass, I realised that I was at risk of committing a huge cultural faux pas, by ignorantly applying the clotted cream and jam in an order wholly incognisant of the Devonian methodology. I carried on regardless, if any interested party, Devonian or Cornish, wanted to see how a scone should be prepared, this could be a lesson to them. As it happens, the right way is the Devonian way, but I’d desecrated tradition anyway by having a fruit scone, and raspberry – not strawberry – jam.

Soon there was a distinct improvement in proceedings as I turned onto ‘The Granite Way’, a tarmacked former railway bed that crept around the edge of Dartmoor for 8 gloriously flat miles between Lydford and Okehampton. The cycle path was busy with other users and one man in particular appeared to be having a tough time of it, with a fixed wheel tagalong attached to his bike, his son seemed to be having a great time back pedalling up the climbs!

After popping into a shop on the edge of Okehampton for provisions, I committed myself to aim for Crediton, another 20 miles further on. Thankfully, the road stuck to major roads to Whiddon Down, and I felt good riding the shallower gradients. The going remained good until a sharp climb a mile from Crediton, and instantly the fatigue in my legs returned. When a further 9% ramp followed shortly after, I opted to push, after 48 miles I’d given up the battle for today.

The nearest campsite was 5 miles to the East, and with no response to my phone call I headed there regardless, largely because the route looked flat. Arriving at the Langford Bridge campsite at 20 to 7, the sign stated that reception was open ‘til 7, and the campsite was largely empty, I’d found my abode for the night.

Luckily, after the exertions of the day, my dinner couldn’t be simpler, a tin of Heinz beans and sausages, and, finally, a use for the stove I’ve been carrying.