I usually decide where I'm going to tour many months in advance, but this year it's all been a bit last minute. I looked at a map and decided to head north and try and take in some places I'm not too familiar with. It soon came to my attention that I could easily get some high and low points of England, so planned my route around that.

So my four extremities of England are:

• Highest paved road - Great Dun Fell (Cumbria)
• Highest pub - The Tan Hill Inn (North Yorkshire)
• Lowest point - Holme Fen (Cambridgeshire)
• Lowest pub - The Admiral Wells (Cambridgeshire)

My route will roughly look like this:

The first part of the route will be straight across the country from Newcastle following the Hadrian's Wall cycle route. I've not really ridden much around there and there should be lots of interesting stuff! Then I'll head into the Lake District which hopefully won't be too busy! After that I'll take in the two high points, before wiggling down through the Peak District and over towards Peterborough for the two low points.

Nothing is set in stone route wise, so I can pick and choose to add bits in or take bits out depending on things like the weather and how I'm feeling in general.

Edit 21/06/2026:

I'm all packed up and ready to go! I've got quite a few new pieces of kit - tent, sleeping bag etc which I briefly used last month but this will be a more thorough test.

I'm quite a few kg lighter than normal - mainly due to aforementioned new kit, although it doesn't look it!

I'll be off bright and early in the morning to get to London for my train to Newcastle.