Hi, and welcome to our 2018 cycle blog. Last year we biked from John O’Groats to Land’s End. This year we plan to cycle from Chippenham in Wilts through Wales to Holyhead, then Dublin, on to Galway Bay, and then meander back along the west and south coasts of Ireland, back to south Wales and then Chippenham. It’s a bit different from last year in that after Dublin there’s no set itinerary.
This afternoon we started to get the bikes ready. We have fancy new Arkel panniers, which are fairly pricey but guaranteed for life. They have a spiffy cam locking system for attaching to the bikes. Easy to hook on, but very secure.
I also packed our bike maintenance and repair kit. Top left is tyre repair kit – inner tubes, patch kits, rim levers, disposable nylon gloves and so on. Bottom right is all the other stuff – spare brake pads, spare cable, chain links, chain link tool, Leatherman, bike spanners, zip ties, nylon cord, strap, bungees, sticky tape. All the stuff you need for fixing bikes, delivering babies, performing minor open-heart surgeries. (Actually, we did end up using just about everything in our repair kit last year – for fixing bike-related things, not the other stuff.)
Atticus kindly helped out.
