Part 2 of Nikki and Lorraine's Isle Of Wight adventure (featuring Mark2 Electric Bikes!)

In July 2022, friends Nikki and Lorraine set off to tour around the Isle of Wight on their Mark2 ebikes. The following blog is part 2 of a series of blogs that details the exciting story of their summer adventure, as told by Nikki.

Day one: a crash course in eBike mechanics

Lorraine had arranged to leave her car in the driveway of her friend’s house near Lymington, so we left Wiltshire in the afternoon and allowed ourselves an hour and a half to get there - safe in the knowledge that we would then have plenty of time to get to our ferry.

At least, that was the plan...

Unfortunately the drive took a lot longer than we thought it would, and then we couldn’t find the friend’s house (their house number didn’t exist on Google maps!) so after a few frantic phone calls, we were running late when we finally arrived at the designated driveway.

We quickly reassembled the bikes, loaded them up with our panniers and the Prosecco carrier – and then my bike fell over (I had stupidly loaded the first pannier on the side without the bike stand, so it overbalanced).

This caused the chain to come off.

In the meantime, Lorraine was having trouble getting her battery back into its socket on the bike – and on top of all this, the sun was blazing down as our weekend of sunny weather had started.

This was not exactly the relaxed start to our adventure that we had planned.

Five minutes later – and with very black oily fingers - the chain was back on, the battery securely inserted and we were finally on our way to the ferry.

On the ferry - Lymington to Yarmouth

The ferry crossing from Lymington to Yarmouth (our first stop) was glorious – flat seas, beautiful sunshine, bikes safely stowed on the lower deck. Felt proud when the steward admired our bikes, saying “Ooh they look a bit special”.

It was definitely time to crack open our first mini-Prosecco, and toast our adventure!

On arrival on the Isle of Wight, we set off for central Yarmouth to find our hotel for the night – The Bugle Coaching Inn.

Ignoring our newly-purchased maps, we simply followed the sign for ‘Town Centre’.

After a mile or two we saw another sign – this time to Yarmouth, pointing back the way we had come. So we turned the bikes around (at this point Lorraine fell off very slowly and gracefully as the weight of the heavily-laden bike caught her out; both she and the bike were fine) and headed back down the hill.

We kept going for a few miles, past where we had arrived, on up another hill and then were very puzzled to see another sign to Yarmouth, again pointing back to where we had just come from again.

It was not getting dark yet, but felt like it should be…..

So back we went, and finally found a very small sign that said ‘Town Centre’, which took us straight back to where the ferry had come in. Which was right next to The Bugle Coaching Inn – we had been less than 100 yards from it when we had arrived.

Lorraine was so excited, she fell off her bike again!

The staff at the Inn were very hospitable, making sure our eBikes were tucked away safely before showing us to a very pretty twin room with a sea view.

We had removed our batteries without any issues and were able to easily charge them up in our rooms while we headed downstairs for a delicious supper and a look at the map (after the afternoon’s adventures we thought it might be best to do some proper research and route mapping for the next day).

We finished the evening with a lovely sunset walk along Yarmouth Pier.