It’s been a while since I headed off on the Specialized AWOL bike. It’s too heavy for normal weekend riding with the group (15kg) and it’s been too cold and dark to find the motivation to ride it work and back. With the sun shining and the potential of a lock down coming up due to the COVID19 virus, I decided what better thing to do then to head along the Fosse Way on my own for a few miles. Well about 30 as it turned out.

From Wikipedia….

The Fosse Way was a Roman road in England that linked Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) in South West England to Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) in Lincolnshire, via Ilchester (Lindinis), Bath (Aquae Sulis), Cirencester (Corinium) and Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum).

It joined Akeman Street and Ermin Way at Cirencester, crossed Watling Street at Venonis (High Cross) south of Leicester, and joined Ermine Street at Lincoln.

The word Fosse is derived from the Latin fossa, meaning ‘ditch’.^[1] For the first few decades after the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 CE, the Fosse Way marked the western frontier of Roman rule in Iron Age Britain. It is possible that the road began as a defensive ditch that was later filled in and converted into a road, or possibly a defensive ditch ran alongside the road for at least some of its length.^[2]

From Lincoln to Ilchester in Somerset, a distance of 182 miles (293 km), the route is never more than 6 miles (10 km) from a straight line.^[3][4]

I loved every minute of it! At first, I was worried the wind would be too strong and that I wouldn’t keep my interest by the time I got to the start of the track – a good 8 or 9 miles from home. The reality was very different. The moment I hit the mud with the large 42mm tyres the bike seemed to come into its own and pushed me to have more fun. As I dived between puddles, holes and deep ridges in the track, the open bi-way in front of me just pulled me further and further along. Stopping only for photographs and, as you can see, nerd like levels of documenting on the GoPro, I felt like a child out in the 70’s with no care in the world. This time though, I had all the toys I needed to do exactly what I wanted to do. Definitely an experience to be repeated.