I’ve been a little remiss in writing here recently, but I’ve been busy planning my first bike tour. The idea came together haphazardly when my friend Martinez asked me if I wanted to go camping in Devon for a holiday at the end of September. Now as much as this sounded promising I did think we might get bored sat around the one camp-site for a week so I suggested we do a bike tour. So a quick Google search for bike tours in Devon brought up the Sustrans West Country Way route.

The 240mile route looked ideal with good train links at either end. My initial idea was to camp, but looking at the gear required (I’ve don’t even own a sleeping bag let alone a tent) and the cost and weight involved B&B’s seemed the best option for my first tour also to bear in mind was that Martinez had at this point only ridden his 4year old mountain bike a half dozen times at this point so five nights in a tent after a hard day on the bike was not appealing for him.

The West Country Way site was a great resource in planning the trip with lots of information and inspirational pictures.  I was keen to buy the Sustrans map of the tour but they are unfortunately out of print at the moment all though an other print run is expected soon. I have been searching ebay but they are going for well over rrp. So I have mapped out my route on Mapmyride.com with the deviations required for our accommodation I’ll share the maps once I’ve tested them on the ground and updated as needed. Sorting out accommodation for the route I thought was going to be a nightmare, but the Cycle-n-sleep website has done a lot of the hard work and has resolved half of our nights stay. I’m still searching for the last couple of nights at the moment. The other major logistical aspect was the trains so I sent Martinez of to the station to book our and our bikes tickets in plenty of time to get advance fares. We are starting in Bath train station and have to make our way to St Austell at the other end to get our ride home

So three weeks to go before the big day just about everything is in place, apart from decent fitness and a handle bar bag for my SLR. I want to take the SLR as the lens on my compact is just not up too the job of capturing the stunning scenery we are going to be passing and I hope to  add some great shots to the WCW Flickr group, weather permitting.

Now as no form of exercise more strenuous than walking to the pub (a good thing) can be undertaken these days with out raising money for charity (a great thing) we are asking for sponsorship. The Teenage Cancer Trust are doing very good work local to Martinez and all over the country so we have decided to support them and we would be very grateful if you could too via JustGiving.

During the trip my heavy laptop will be staying at home so I will not be blogging my trip on a daily basis (unless I get Posterous working) But I will put together a full report on my return and update twitter along the way.