[Video] London to Cork - by Bicycle

RobCyclist

Hey
If anyone happens to be interested, I've created a little video of myself cycling London to Cork; 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdPcpb4UQHc

The route went through; London, Oxford, Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, Fishguard -- Ireland-  Rosslare Harbour, Waterford and then onto Cork.

I tried to film the scenery and stuff mainly so hope you enjoy if you're interested. I followed the new EuroVelo 1 cycle route in Ireland, and national cycle network route 4 on the UK side. I cycled along the waterford greenway which was a great trail.

More than happy to answer any questions if you had any, 

(I posted a vid of me doing London to Dublin last year, got a few likes on here so figured I would share this one too). Hope that's no problem

I planned to cycle to Dingle but the forecast was all rain, so had a few days in Cork instead, which was a very nice city. 

Cheers:)
Rob

Roger Hassenforder

Fair play, that's some segment!
You were right not to bother with Kerry.

albert kidd

some adventure..fair play.

MichealD

Great road trip and video! I live about 35kms from Rosslare. That Eurovelo route from Rosslare to the little ferry at Ballyhack is lovely, relatively, deserted section. I see you camped at Kilmore Quay. How did you find the wild camping in general?

Finally well done on climbing St Patrick’s Hill in Cork on that loaded bike!

bax4556

Well done buddy Great trip Enjoyed the video!

Trekker09

Brilliant!!

I'm pondering cycling from Ireland to Northampton to raise money for CF next year.

Get In There

Great video Rob! Something i'd love to do someday! Looks like you had yourself a grand adventure!

How did you plot your route? As in some of the surface you cycled on weren't tarmac. Sometimes when I plot a route on ridewithgps and follow it on my garmin, I sometimes find the route takes myself onto treacherous road surfaces.

Also the shots of you cycling away in the distance look cool I have to say!

If I was touring on my own, I always thought to myself i'd probably go and buy a one man tent. You used a two man tent, any specific reason why you opted for that?

Any advice for someone who'd want to take on a similar challenge? Any changes you would make to your preparation for your next adventure?

Slydice

How did you get on with the camping? Anyone give you grief? How about locking the bike overnight?

daragh_

Great video. Looks like a nice trip.

Watched it last night late and at one point I was thinking ‘Oh no, he’s after riding off without his camera’...

What kind of camping gear were you carrying?

RobCyclist

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

Fair play, that's some segment!
You were right not to bother with Kerry.

Thanks mate, it was a bit annoying that I couldn't go Kerry as I had the route all planned out and all. But it's all good, had a great time in Cork  Cheers. Rob

RobCyclist

albert kidd wrote: »

some adventure..fair play.

cheers buddy

RobCyclist

MichealD wrote: »

Great road trip and video! I live about 35kms from Rosslare. That Eurovelo route from Rosslare to the little ferry at Ballyhack is lovely, relatively, deserted section. I see you camped at Kilmore Quay. How did you find the wild camping in general?

Finally well done on climbing St Patrick’s Hill in Cork on that loaded bike!

Thanks man. I agree that the eurovelo route is really great and well put together...  and yeah camped down at Kilmore Quay. Had a bit of a nightmare there actually. I went to the supermarket to buy some food - mace think it was called just outside  Killmore and couldn't find my wallet when I was at the tills. Turned out it was lying at the beach where I camped at as the tide was coming in. Felt very lucky to have that back. The shop owner there offered to give me 50 euros if I couldn't find it which was great of him  (as without my wallet I would have have been stuck in a new country with no money)... great guy!
Wild camping was also great fun, enjoyed searching for places and didn't get in any trouble  Cheers

RobCyclist

bax4556 wrote: »

Well done buddy Great trip Enjoyed the video!

Thanks dude

RobCyclist

Trekker09 wrote: »

Brilliant!!

I'm pondering cycling from Ireland to Northampton to raise money for CF next year.

Cheers dude. If you go along the south wales coast its a great route. 
And how come Northampton out of interest? It's a nice place but not the most visited. But good luck with the trip if that goes ahead mate, would be for a great cause.

RobCyclist

Get In There wrote: »

Great video Rob! Something i'd love to do someday! Looks like you had yourself a grand adventure!

How did you plot your route? As in some of the surface you cycled on weren't tarmac. Sometimes when I plot a route on ridewithgps and follow it on my garmin, I sometimes find the route takes myself onto treacherous road surfaces.

Also the shots of you cycling away in the distance look cool I have to say!

If I was touring on my own, I always thought to myself i'd probably go and buy a one man tent. You used a two man tent, any specific reason why you opted for that?

Any advice for someone who'd want to take on a similar challenge? Any changes you would make to your preparation for your next adventure?

Thanks mate. I really enjoyed the trip.

I plotted the route using this website, http://cycle.travel/map/

This was the exact route I followed: http://cycle.travel/map/journey/50059 ;

The website has all the local, national and eurovelo cycle routes on in europe. And I looked at where all the hostels were in UK and Ireland, as wanted to stay in them and meet people (as I would be cycling on my own for a while). Oxford, Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Fishguard, Waterford and Cork all have them. I've been recommend the ridgeway as well (5000 year old pilgramage trail in England) so I added that into the route at the start. And wanted to follow official cycle routes so I followed the National Cycle Network route 4 in the UK, which is a popular route crossing England and wales. And then it made sense to follow the new eurovelo route in Ireland. So yeah my route was planned around interesting cities with hostels and popular cycle routes.

And thanks the tripod footage looks good, but it really does get tiring always cycling back to pick up the camera and it's even worse when you set it up and you find out there was an SD card error on the gopro or it just turned off randomly and you have to cycle that again.

And I cycled with a one man tent, you probably could squeeze two people in my one if there was no bags inside but it really wouldn't be that comfortable. I'd say get a one man tent if your going by yourself, not much point carrying the extra weight. I got the tent from the UK bicycle shop called decathalon if your interested, it's out of stoke currently tho. https://www.decathlon.co.uk/t-lite-1-hiking-tent-1-man-green-id_8211278.html
Thanks for watching and good luck on doing something similar if you choose too :). 

I definitely think packing less is a great idea and what I didn't pull of this time. I brought lots of clothes which weighed me down and made some of the hills very challenging. Also probably doing as much cycling before a tour is really great advice. To prevent any injuries which I actually done last time, I messed up my right hamstring / nerve down my leg somehow when I was cycling in Germany. 

Cheers. Rob.

RobCyclist

Slydice wrote: »

How did you get on with the camping? Anyone give you grief? How about locking the bike overnight?

Camping was great man. I didn't always wild camp though. And no one gave me any grief which was good. I left early in the mornings and set my tent up just as it was getting dark so I doubt many people even noticed me. And I used a £10 bike lock which I attached to anything sturdy I could find, once on a tree, the other time on a metal pole and the last time through a bench.  Cheers.

RobCyclist

daragh_ wrote: »

Great video. Looks like a nice trip.

Watched it last night late and at one point I was thinking ‘Oh no, he’s after riding off without his camera’...

What kind of camping gear were you carrying?

Hi mate, just read this. 
Cheers. I brought with me a 1 man tent that I bought from a bike shop a few years back in the UK called decathalon for £70 - not sure if you get them in Ireland... but it's an alright tent. It's out of stoke but here is the link if you are interested: https://www.decathlon.co.uk/t-lite-1-hiking-tent-1-man-green-id_8211278.html
I also brought a 3 season sleeping bag and a standard camping matt with me.
Thanks for watching man

Canis Lupus

That bridge is a bit blowy on a bike hey. Nice vid.

Edit the wonky plastic bags makes the ocd in me twitch though.

TheBlaaMan

Enjoyed that. Thanks for going to the trouble of making putting it together.

Trekker09

RobCyclist wrote: »

Cheers dude. If you go along the south wales coast its a great route. 
And how come Northampton out of interest? It's a nice place but not the most visited. But good luck with the trip if that goes ahead mate, would be for a great cause.

It's in honour of my nephew who had CF. It's actually near the Aston Martin factory,a village called Hanslope.

I'll look into the south wales route, it could work out well as I have family around that area.

RobCyclist

TheBlaaMan wrote: »

Enjoyed that. Thanks for going to the trouble of making putting it together.

No worries mate, thank you for watching Rob.

Tigerandahalf

Hey

How did you do the map route at the start of the video?
It is a nice way to introduce a vlog of a trip.

RobCyclist

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Hey

How did you do the map route at the start of the video?
It is a nice way to introduce a vlog of a trip.

Hi mate, the route creator program I used is called; vasco da gama 10 hdpro by a company called MotionStudios. Great bit of software. Only thing is it's 149 euros on their website, pretty expensive unless you were to download / pirate it for free. And the map they use isn't that high resolution, so the more you zoom it the blurrier it looks.... worth noting if you are intending to use it for say a short distance local ride it might not look that great compared with a longer tour.
If your after something free there are other route creator programs I've used before; for example http://www.routegenerator.net/ I used this on my London to Berlin video on my YT channel. And it can look pretty good if you get a high quality .JPG map as the template for it.  
Any other questions I am happy to answer. Cheers.

Tigerandahalf

Do you find it lonely camping on your own especially when cycling on your own as well?

I think I'd find it hard to do a complete solo unless there was the incentive of a hostel at the end of each day.

I must try to do one of the Eurovelo routes in Europe at some stage as a lot of them are on traffic free ways and a plentiful group of cyclists to mingle with.

diomed

I think you had a trip on video on this site before. That was good and this one is too.
The video is quality and you show interesting places.
Why did you have the diddle-e-dee music when you got to Ireland and rain in every shot?
Thanks for putting up the video. It was very enjoyable.

Canis Lupus

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Do you find it lonely camping on your own especially when cycling on your own as well?

I think I'd find it hard to do a complete solo unless there was the incentive of a hostel at the end of each day.

I must try to do one of the Eurovelo routes in Europe at some stage as a lot of them are on traffic free ways and a plentiful group of cyclists to mingle with.

Isolation is the best part. Find somewhere secluded, hopefullyin some cool picturesque spot, tent up, book out and food on. Bestest thing ever.

RobCyclist

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Do you find it lonely camping on your own especially when cycling on your own as well?

I think I'd find it hard to do a complete solo unless there was the incentive of a hostel at the end of each day.

I must try to do one of the Eurovelo routes in Europe at some stage as a lot of them are on traffic free ways and a plentiful group of cyclists to mingle with.

Yeah, it can feel a bit lonely camping on your own. But after cycling for the most part of the day I'm normally kanackerd and just want to sleep once my tent is up... so I'm not that fussed about having someone to camp with myself. And I cycled with a few cyclists along the journey and talked to lots of people along the way, as people seemed interested in what I was doing.  And every few days I was at a good hostel so idk I didn't feel that lonely. 
I don't think I could handle a long tour solo on my own, if there were no hostels or people though. Like if I was in rural Finland or something surrounded by trees on my own and no hostels for days, that might be a bit too much but this route was more than alright.

And yup the eurovelo routes are decent. Hope you enjoy one if you go a head with it.
Cheers

RobCyclist

diomed wrote: »

I think you had a trip on video on this site before.  That was good and this one is too.
The video is quality and you show interesting places.
Why did you have the diddle-e-dee music when you got to Ireland and rain in every shot?
Thanks for putting up the video.  It was very enjoyable.

Hi Diomed, yeah I posted a bike trip going London to Dublin last year, really enjoyed that one and so I shared that on here too.
And sorry aha, I typed in Irish instrumental music into youtube as needed a song for the Irish leg and a song called Irish hills came up. I've been told the author doesn't know what music he is making though lol, as he is using bagpipes and in ireland you guys prefer Uilleann Pipes. But hopefully no one realised that  
As for raining in every shot not sure I do that a lot in my editing. I probably done it too much here tho   
And no worries man, thanks for watching