Today's Weather Gods: content (overcast with light breeze).
Today's Bottom State: aching.
Estimated distance: 77 miles. Actual distance: 87 miles.
This morning I was awake early as there were a few things that we needed to sort out and so a bit of running around between Paul’s, John’s and my house before we set off. Last night’s socialising was not excessive but nevertheless we are already feeling a little weary, and it is only three days in and eight more days of cycling to go. The car was loaded and then the three cyclists met up in the Co Op car park ready for the off.
Today I was back on my trusty steed; Paul had fixed it the previous evening and also given me a lesson in setting up a bike. Until recently my experience of cycling has been very limited. Indeed, the last time I was on a road bike it weighed a ton and had a strange little lever thingy on the frame for changing the five gears you had. Oh, and in those days they were called ‘racers’. Now there are little switches on the handle bars to click and pull to change up and down the gears and they weigh next to nothing with their carbon fibre forks and aluminium frames. Yes, I have learned a lot in the last few days about bikes from John and Paul. I now know that the part that went wrong on my bike is not called ‘the bit that the pedal goes through on the frame’ but the ‘bottom bracket’ and that what I think of as ‘the big cog’ is actually called the ‘crankset’.
It was a cold morning as we set off, heading up through Wiltshire via Westonbirt, Tetbury and then on to Stroud. As the morning passed the weather improved: overcast but mild and no rain. The route was relatively flat, especially around Worcestershire so we made good time. The only frustration has been the head wind for a large part of the day. Like us, most people doing this trip cycle from Land’s End to John O’Groats in order to best exploit the prevailing winds which are generally from the south west in Britain. But ‘generally’ is not ‘exclusively’ and the distinction has become crystal clear to us in the last couple of days. We can not complain too much though; after passing through Worcester we passed another cyclist who told us he was also doing the Land’s End to John O’Groats route. Unlike us he was self supporting and was laden down front and back with panniers which must have weighed a ton. We were only too glad that we were not cycling bikes like that into a headwind: as they say, things could always be worse.
Our day ended in Bewdley a few miles to the west of Kidderminster at about 6.30. We had booked our Bewdley Guest House last night after a random search on the internet but what a find this place is. It is an isolated Georgian riverside town nestled in a small valley and with loads of buildings of great character dotted around in a higgledy piggledy fashion around the river; the beauty of Bath without the regimentation of its architecture. I would like to think I will be back (although not on a bicycle). Once we had settled in John went off to meet his brother while I went off to the local pub with Paul and Geri for one pint of beer that went straight to my head after today’s exertions.
So all in all a great day: good weather, a relatively easy ride and a comparatively early arrival allowing us to relax a little. Another 87 miles in the bag. Tomorrow we head for Preston which is an additional 20 miles on today. I think it will be a late arrival.
After seeing the cyclists off early in the morning, Clover and I had a nice relaxing start to the day. Car packed up and ready to go, the only question was…where was Mark’s cat Millie? Inside or out. A 10 minute search eventually uncovered the cat shut in one of the bedrooms and once released we were ready to go.
A nice easy drive to Stroud and with the weather being dry at last, it set the tone for the rest of the day. A coffee in the centre of Stroud with Clover doing her usual crowd pulling and then we were off again. A few more stops including one at a wonderful wild park area which Clover loved bounding though the long grass and we ended up in a delightful B&B in Bewdsley. End of a perfect day.
Geri and Clover
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