After selling my road bike most of you thought I bought my Planet X XLS CycloCross bike as a Strava bike, but after getting used to riding a drop bar bike off road, building up my off road mileage and hours in the saddle including yesterdays 82mile cycle path ride it's time to come clean and let you know the main reason that I got it for (not that you care, but you've read this far so you might be slightly interested)

As most of you know I bivi ride several times a year but you can't really ride big distances with all your gear and food on your bike.
Taking inspiration from Eric with his Sustrans work and Chris brasher who's saying was "Travel light, travel far, travel fast and travel in comfort"

So, my Planet X XLS is my long distance light weight tourer or my "Credit Card Tourer", where I carry the bear minimum and use cash or a credit card for an over night in a B&B's, pub meals, food and drink at towns and villages that I ride through.

Now that the first summer in 2 years is here with a 2 week+ high pressure system is starting to sit over us, this coming Wednesday (10th July) it's time to act on my plans.

The plan
Leave home in the car at 7am and drive to Ravensglass in the South West of Cumbria to ride the 174 miles to South Shields on the coast east of Newcastle up on Tyne along Sustrans route 72 http://www.cycle-routes.org/hadrianscycleway/

Ride until I need to stop for food on route then around 6pm or 7pm look for the nearest B&B or hotel to stop for the night.
Next morning finish off the ride and head to Newcastle train station for a couple of trains back to the start and my car.

My bike the day it arrived


Now loaded with a Wildcat rear pack and a Revelate Designs Gas Tank bag




Overnight stuff in he rear pack, clothes, spares, maps etc


In the Gas Tank bag


I've got my ICE sticker on my helmet and I'm also using a "Real time GPS tracker" Android app by Greenalp.com which shows my exact place on Google Maps to anyone who has the web link, so if anything goes wrong at least the wife can see the ditch I'm laying in and call in help.

Another thing I've got to help me is that little blue box (in the photo) with is a battery pack to charge up my 2 phones and my GPS rather than taking loads of batteries and plug in chargers.