I'm a double cancer survivor, cyclist and walker who does various challenges for different charities, mainly cancer-related.

In 2016 I climbed every single 'Birkett' in the Lake District - all 542 fells over 1,000' within the National Park, including all 214 Wainwrights. I've also done a three-week cycle tour of Tasmania in February 2015 and amongst other things, I've cycled from Land's End to John o'Groats (2003), Rotterdam to Lemvig (Denmark) (2005), walked the Pennine Way (2008) completed (my first) ascent of all 214 'Wainwrights' in the Lake District in only 55 days (2009), cycled 4,500 miles around the coast of Great Britain (2011), cycled all 42 of the accessible Western Isles of Scotland in under a month (2012), twice abseiled 230 ft from the top of The Big One in Blackpool, cycled the WWI Western Front from London to Compiegne via Ypres and Arras (2014), cycled 750 miles in the Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton (2014), done a bit of sky-diving and cycled Australia's Great Ocean Road - just before lockdown in 2020.

Altogether I've raised over £120,000 for my charities including The Christie, Cancer Research UK, the Rosemere Cancer Foundation, and ABF (The Soldiers' Charity) and I was mightily chuffed to receive the British Empire Medal in the 2014 New Year's Honours List.

I'm a Rotarian and give illustrated talks about my adventures in exchange for a donation to charity, so if you're looking for a speaker leave me a message. I am also Event Organiser for the Ribble Valley Ride Cycle Sportive, to be held this year on Sunday 5 September 2021 - more details at www.ribblevalleyride.org

You can also follow me on Twitter - @CancerBikeMan and on Facebook - just search for Bill Honeywell

Cancer Research UK is the world's leading charity dedicated to beating cancer through research, whilst The Rosemere does fantastic work for patients in Lancashire and South Cumbria.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Day 34 – Cleethorpes to Sutton-on-Sea

(Day off) – 30 miles, total 2,259 miles

After three fairly long days totalling 265 miles, today was always planned as a ‘day off’ with only a short mileage on those flat Lincolnshire roads.  And of course I needed some spare time to sort out all the problems I’d been having with internet access.

I couldn’t work out why I’d used so much data, but later in the day realised that I was saving all my photos on Dropbox, which is a great program for keeping things backed up and available between different computers, but… it works on-line, so when photos are involved there’s a lot of data being used.  My fault, but easy to forget these things.

First of all I went to the Haven Holiday Park reception, where I was directed to the Aqua-Bar – there is free Wi-fi there – but although I could connect, I couldn’t view anything at all.  So back to the van where we decided that a new dongle would have to be bought – off to the Tesco Superstore in Cleethorpes by a somewhat circuitous route (I was only sitting in the back but I’m sure we passed the same school three times!) and eventually a T-Mobile dongle was purchased for about £20.

By now it was 10.30 so I got the bike out on the supermarket car park and set off from there for Sutton-on-Sea, having put on plenty of sun cream (which is why it turned cloudy almost as soon as I started).


















Not many photo opportunities, I must say, as the countryside is pretty flat and uninspiring, although there were a few attractive villages along the A1031.  After the world’s busiest A-road into Immingham and Grimsby yesterday, I think this is the world’s quietest A-road – it was lovely and peaceful.


















Road Closed signs were in abundance several miles from the bridge where repairs were underway, at the tongue-twisting Theddlethorpe, but I decided to risk it and it was passable for bicycles anyway.  By the time I arrived at Mablethorpe I still hadn’t seen the sea, which I thought was odd, considering this is a coastal bike ride!  I had to make a detour up on to the sea wall even then, only to find that the beach was anything but crowded!
































Mablethorpe was a  bit of a disappointment.  It seems pretty run down and there are boarded up hotels and other signs of decline, as well as car park attendants who appear to randomly shout at passing van drivers.  Moving on to Sutton-on-Sea involved passing more caravan parks per mile than I’ve seen anywhere else on the trip, after encountering some very healthy(?) looking Giant Hogweeds by the roadside.



















So after only just over two hours I was at the Caravan Club site at Sutton, where the warden gave a kind donation to Cancer Research and I could get on with the not-so-exciting jobs of connecting up the new dongle, servicing and cleaning the bike, and emptying the chemical toilet. Happy days!

That donation reminds me - you probably know already, but if not, I'm doing this 4,300 mile bike ride to raise funds for Cancer Research UK.  So if you can spare a few shillings, please visit the CRUK site or my JustGiving page at http://tinyurl.com/cancerbikeman or http://www.justgiving.com/Bill-Honeywell and make a donation to help the fight against cancer. Thank you!

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