I had a fall, a stay in what apeared to be a brothel, and a touch of hypothermia.

I set off on bank holiday Friday at 1pm from the Guardian's office and arrived in Bristol at around 12.30pm on Monday.

There were three highlights.

Furiously pedalling out of Warrington through Cheshire on the first day and waving to other cyclists out and about.

The there was a changing a puncture. I'd never changed one before.

Near a little village called Grinshill, I felt a strange bump with each push of the pedal - and found to my horror a rear puncture.

To understand how little I know about bikes read this earlier blog entry. I tried not to panic - rear punctures involve the gears - and after nearly an hour I had a new inner tube on and pumped up enought to make it into Hereford.

Best of all was crossing the Severn bridge at the end of the journey on Monday.

It was truly huge, and the sight of the river Severn was awe-inspiring. The sound of wind making the cables hum and fierce sea wind all added to the experience.

Safety did concern me a little.

I made a couple of staff promise if I didn't make it back they wouldn't use the picture of me where I look like a cross between a ferret and a escapee from a gulag with the news story.

And the awful wind and rain on Sunday, when I was cycling alone and freezing cold without waterproofs through lonely welsh hills, left me worried about hypothermia when I started to lose concentration and the sensation in my fingers.

I spent two hours in a pub in Monmouth nursing a coffee while nipping to the toilets and using the handryers to try and get warm and dry.

And on a quick down hill section of the A49 in Cheshire the roar of a passing motorcycle startled me and I found myself headng for the gravel.

Next thing the bike was upended and I was rolling over the grass verge like a stuntman.

No harm done, but it reinforced the point - cycling on major A-roads is not great fun because of the traffic.

I mainly relieved myself by the roadside (a childhood spent holidaying in France and watching the locals made me have no qualms about that.) I took a bare minimum of gear and carried it in a rucksack and two rear bike bags (known as panniers, which were fixed to a metal rack above the rear wheel).

Some of the hills were ferocious. Cuddington Hill, the hill south out of Hereford, and the hill south of a welsh village called Llancloudy were evil.

Suddenly the low 30-tooth chainring, which I sneered at using before, became my best friend.

I also got bad sunburn on the Friday. I looked like a lobster in a white t-shirt. I was probably the only person in the country glad of the bad bank holiday weather.

Home for the first night was a a hotel in Shrewsbury town centre that looked at first like a cross between a care home and a brothel.

The foreign sounding landlady of the apparently deserted £25 a night hotel kept saying I was welcome to go in the faded chintz glamour of the dining room, where a gaggle of foreign girls sat talking.

I turned out thet next morning there was no need to be suspicious - they were Swedes doing summer work in the UK as a bit of an adventure.

The second night was a £25 pub B&B in Hereford and for the third a £30 pub in Chepstow.

Finding rooms was never a problem and three out of four places I asked had space for my bike.

All were friendly a clean enough, but on my own there wasn't much to do apart from a few maudlin pints with a newspaper (though I had the best tapas I've ever tasted at a cafe called, I think, Doodies, in Hereford, bizarely enough).

The strangest part was the pub barman in Hereford repeatedly asking me if there was anything going on between me and his wife, just becuase I said 'hello' to her.

I could almost hear the duelling banjos.

A good spin-off off from the trip is people seem impressed with a physical achievement by me, probably for the first time ever!

A 160-mile or so bike ride sounds difficult to the lay man, but a proper cyclist could manage it in a day with a big effort.

But it was a great adventure for me and I can't wait for the next one. I'd plan it better, stay in nicer places, keep off major A-roads, and hopefully get someone else to come along.