When the fruit farm’s website announced the ripening of the strawberries, we knew exactly where our family ride that Sunday would take us.

Every now and then, a tell-tale line of undergrowth cuts across my path. It marks the route of the old railway line. Of the hop pickers who once rode trains into Herefordshire in search of seasonal work, there remains only the slightest trace.

For much of the ride we followed the ghosts of old steam trains – their rails now long gone and their presence a distant memory. In their place: cycle paths and forests tracks.

I was on the Ridgeway – again. This time it was to ride a 240km car-free, off-road overnighter using the Kennet & Avon Canal to create a loop.

We pedalled away from our hostel – a converted thirteenth century castle – on the bike paths that run through the forest and nature reserve, before parking up in the dunes and heading to the beach.

From our viewpoint above Cheddar Gorge, the town stretched out before us and we could see the hostel where we had spent the previous night.

As we pedalled along the white gravel towpath we couldn’t believe our luck. It was only Easter but the temperature was nudging 20°C in an unseasonal warm spell. Early in the year, and with local schools not yet on holiday, we had the path almost to ourselves.

“I’ll meet you there,” I said to my family as they headed off to the station. It was the first leg of our holiday in Scotland and they were catching the train out of Glasgow to the Falkirk Wheel. I was keen to do some cycling, so I planned to grab a bike from the city’s Nextbike bike-sharing scheme and ride along the canal to Falkirk.

Corum said he had wondered whether to bother opening his shop that morning; it was still term time in Wales and distinctly off-season for surfing and cycling in Porthcawl. Luckily for us, he had decided to show up.

“Ha, your bikes are smaller than mine,” chuckled G as J and I retrieved our Bromptons from the lockers outside Bristol Temple Meads Station.