Starting on Monday 3rd June — that was the UN’s World Bicycle Day — I set off from my home in Newcastle for a short ride to Hexham. And then I kept going. Until Inverness.

That was the first part of a three month, 4,500-mile trip around the best bits of Britain. Why? I’ve got a book to research. A book of 52 of the best day rides in Britain. And you can follow my progress on this bike blog.

I am posting updates of the daily rides between the loops. The loops are the day rides I’ve curated and the GPS plot and detailed info for those will only be in the book.

You can keep tabs on me in the Follow my progress section. That clever chap James Houston has written code that grabs my Strava uploads and populates a moving map with my on-the-ground progress between loops.