Today's mileage: 63
LEJOG mileage to date: 450

Map view:

Google Earth view:

And the ride to date:

Almost due north, and mostly downhill!

My geography is rubbish: I had no idea Nottingham was so hilly or that Yorkshire could be so flat.

If you're wondering about the very neat mileage, it wasn't quite so neat when we arrived at the pub that was our destination:

That clearly wouldn't do, so I did a few laps of the roundabout outside the pub:

Damn, 0.01 mile too far.

The trikes were parked in Pat's back garden overnight. Fortunately we only needed to remove the seat on mine, and the seat and fairing on Donald's.

And the first 100 metres was guaranteed downhill:

We were already in the north of the city, so not too much urban riding to do to exit the city.

Most of it was uphill, though!

It's interesting the way the LEJOG bug bites. When we planned it, it was - to be honest - an ambitious idea for me. I was a bloke of average fitness who did a 40-mile flattish ride once a week, and was planning on averaging 52 miles of often hilly territory day after day after day for three weeks

My view was that it would be fantastic to complete the ride, but worst-case I'd enjoy cycling some nice back-roads for three weeks. But the more miles we did, and the more achieveable making it to John O'Groats looked, the more I wanted to take direct roads to maximise our chances.

And the truth is that A-roads are often just as scenic as B-roads once you're out in the countryside. So today's rides was mostly A-roads, but - thanks to nearby motorways - still relatively quiet ones.

We stopped for water at a petrol station, and the attendant asked what we were doing. I told her, and I think she must have told everyone in the queue as three other people came up to us and thrust money into our hands.

I'm very consistent in my fuelling needs: I can go 20 miles between starting out and needing some food. The road we were on was pretty rural, so when we hit 18 miles, I started looking for a lunch stop. Nothing appeared, so at 19.5 miles, I decided to risk following a side-road sign to a hotel.

It finally emerged, and was worth the slight detour:

I had the world's poshest baked potato with cheese::

And of course:

Then back onto the remarkably flat and straight roads:

While the GPS was now doing an excellent job, I did need to intervene when it wanted to take us up the A1, a motorway in all but name.

Fortunately, the required detour was easy: take the A1 for 1.5 miles (slightly scary even with my absurdly hi-viz vest and Dinotte light) and then off at Ranby onto parallel roads.

The alternative route was much more pleasant!

If only this sign had been a few miles earlier:

Note the bemused-looking locals at the corner. :-)

The geography was still wonderfully flat,

Another irresistable photo-opp:

We had a quick chat with its owners. They were just taking it for a quick test run, but apparently it did get around a bit.

We were challenged to a race in one village:

I've really come to love the final 5-10 miles of the day. We're close enough to our destination to know we can make it, so it's a chance to ease off and just enjoy tootling along.

And another county ticked off. I believe the East Ridings hasn't officially existed for several decades, but don't try telling the locals that.

Across the M62:

Our intended destination had been the village of Rawcliffe. Rawcliffe, it turned out, had two pubs, neither of which served food.

So back we went and on into Snaith, where we were told food was served.

The road surface was so bad we took to the pavement!

Where we stumbled across an absolutely fantastic pub, the Plough Inn.

We'd had no luck with campsites, so our plan was to ask a pub landlord if we could park in his car-park and pitch a tent in the garden. Chris, the landlord of the Plough Inn, went one better: he offered a free room for Donald. Two locals, Danny and Jude, overheard and offered their drive for parking as the pub car-park was very small.,

The pub was having a BBQ, had free wifi and had excellent music. Erica shamelessly trolled not only this pub but two others in the village for contributions to the British Heart Foundation, returning with an impressive amount. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Onto day 9 ...