I looked at him doubtfully. 'I'm not sure. It's gone three o'clock already. What time does it get dark in Cornwall at this time of year?'
'Not for ages,' said Mick, waving his hand dismissively. 'One more and then we'll get on.' He headed back to the bar with our empty beer glasses.
It was a lovely pub, to be sure, and goodness knows when we would be passing this way again. But I was having serious doubts about our ability to cycle over 800 miles if we had managed to get waylaid so easily after only 16. Any competent cyclist would have got to Launceston by now - or at least Liskeard or Lostwithiel. We were not even in St Ives.
My book about cycling from Land's End to John o'Groats (the slow cycling way via the pub) is published by the lovely people at Summersdale. It includes an index of the fifty finest beers we tasted on the trip.
Synopsis
As Ellie’s fiftieth birthday approaches and her ambitions of a steady income, a successful career and an ascent of Everest seem as far away as ever, she begins to doubt she’s capable of achieving anything at all. So when her best friend Mick suggests a gruelling cycle ride from Land’s End to John o’Groats, she takes up the challenge.They opt for the scenic route which takes them along cycle paths, towpaths and the back roads and byways of Britain, unable to resist sampling local beers in the pubs they pass along the way. But as the pints start to stack up faster than the miles they’re putting under their tyres, Ellie wonders if they’ll ever make it to the finishing line…
‘Ellie Bennett is funny, she can talk the rear wheel off a Dawes three-speed and she loves a decent pint. I’d tag along with her any day’ OZ CLARKE
'great fun and surprisingly informative’ MARK BEAUMONT, author of The Man Who Cycled the World
'great fun and surprisingly informative’ MARK BEAUMONT, author of The Man Who Cycled the World
‘Ellie Bennett takes on the End-to-End with plentiful supplies of humour and beer' JOSIE DEW
