We have reached Amsterdam!

We have reached Amsterdam a day early after cycling three long days. Yesterday was our first day of cycling in the rain which was a slight relief from heat at first but turned out to make bike heavier as well as more difficult to cycle. My new cycling hat (thankyou Jack and Cassie) was great as it meant I didn't have rain all over my face, it's a shame Bryony didn't have one.

We hope you have been keeping up with our tour via our trackmytour page, thank you if you are. You can have a look at how it's been so far and keep track of our cycle home (finishing at the London office of Buckley Grey Yeoman architects on the 29th) here: http://trackmytour.com/ZjqW3

We cannot find a way to upload any of our sketches so we hope that you will look forward to seeing them when we are back.

Day 3: (day 2 of cycling) Rochester to Canterbury

We have reached Rochester now on our second day of cycling, we hope to have reached just past Canterbury by the end of today. Keep a look out on our trackmytour link. Everything is going ok so far. There have been a few minor issues with the bike and our route has turned out to be around double the length we expected although we have chosen to stick to cycle routes only. They are just so much more enjoyable than the roads.

And we're off!

Day 1:

This is the Oxford tube day. Everything is packed, the bike is ready and Bryony and I cannot wait to get going.

We have set up a track my tour account so that you can see where we are, where we've been and how everything is going. We will keep you posted. Here is the link: http://trackmytour.com/ZjqW3

The New Route

Since our change of plans, we have had to reduce our cycle to going from London to Amsterdam. Here is the day to day breakdown of our trip:

Bad News

I (charlie) have become ill with glandular fever and therefore we have decided to shorten our journey as advised by my doctor. I am getting better day by day and will definitely be fit and healthy before the 9th of August, when we embark on the trip.

Since I have not been able to train over the past two weeks and will only gently be able to over the next coming weeks, the trip will be a round trip from London to Amsterdam for a more relaxed cycle. The planning is going well and we have got nearly all the gear so we are excited and looking forward to going. We'll post our detailed plan of our route and the timescale in the next couple of days.

The Tandem: from the Mental Institution to us

The tandem was first bought by the mental institution "De Voscuyl" in Oegstgeest, The Netherlands. It was bought for the nurses to give the experience of riding a bike to the patients, the nurse on the front with the controls and the patient on the back hopefully enjoying themselves. Having de-rusted the bike, it seems like the bike was kept in a shed or garage for a long time without much use. Then five days before their cycle trip from the Netherlands to London, Maarten and Tom bought the tandem. Here are photos of their trip and then us buying it off them:

Go Away Rust!

After a trip to Halfords for a de-rusting kit and metal polish. We slowly took the rusty parts off the bike and made them all shiney, which really is a satisfying task!

On order; a bike cover so all our de-rusting does not go to waste, and some new pedals as the current ones have no grip on your shoes.