Somewhere in the editorial brain, a small but vital switch has been flicked...
Funny how things sort of creep up on you. At some point over the Bank Holiday weekend just gone, a mate suggested that, come the next Bank Holiday, we ride the Pennine Bridleway on cross bikes in two days.
Which is how we came to be poring over the extraordinarily large and not very details 6MB pdf map from the trail's own web site. Inevitably we started working out which OS maps we needed for the full 200-ish miles or so of the thing and I was shocked to realise that somewhere in the depths of my brain, a switch had been flicked.
Suddenly, after years of relying on paper maps, maybe with a GPS as a back-up, my default was the other way round. I realised that I simply assumed we'd use a GPS unit or a smartphone with a GPS mapping app as our primary means of finding the way, with a whopping great stack of paper maps just in case the electrical bits bailed on us.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have a map and compass and the ability to use it. And I'm not even saying that you should use one in preference to the other, but suddenly after years of depending primarily on maps, it was a bit of an eye-opener to realise that i"d shifted 180˚ without even realising it.
Abnd yes, I fully expect to be slaughtered by the kind of people who only feel safe carrying a leather-boundcopy of Marco Polo's world atlas at all times, but there you go.
So we struck a deal. I'd bring the GPS and Dave can carry the stack of maps. Now all I need to do is get fit...
