The Participation Ride 2007

Tyre 2 written off!

 

I thought it was extravagant bringing two spare tyres but half way through day 2 the second one has gone sausage shaped.

GPS and other problems

 

The GPS did exactly what it said on the tin. It displayed the routes brilliantly. You could not do what we are doing on the National Cycle Network without the routes in a GPS. Signs are few and far between.

We ran late all day and still had 50 miles to do at 5pm. At that point we were in Truro and the GPS ran out of battery. So with no GPS and an impossible number of miles to do we had to abandon the NCN and get to our accommodation via St Austell on the main roads. A bit of a disappointment but the only option we had. As it was we didn't get to our B&B until 10:45pm. Again the lack of the GPS to guide us was a real problem.

I will try to make sure we keep better timing tomorrow. We are having breakfast at 7:30.

PS: I have found the spare battery now.

A surprise at Land's End

 

The day started well with a clean run down to Land's End as we arrived someone said 'Hello Simon'. It was Julia Pound and she was there with husband Barry. I worked with Barry in the Dominican Republic more than 25 years ago. They now live in Cornwall and had come to see us off. Julia recalled helping Jane breast feed Luke! Anyway she obviously did a good job as he has grown up to be a very nice young man.
There was not to be an official photo as the photographer had not turned up but Barry took a couple of shots in front of the 'headless' Land's End sign.

It's going to be a long day

It's 5:30 and we've 50 miles to go after we've fixed this puncture. More later . . .

Stage 1 nerves

 

When you embark on a challenge such as this, you are nervious. You are prone to do silly things like lock yourself out of your bedroom, leave your GPS on top of the rubbish bin or in the case of Ian, cycle for the first hour with your front brake on!
This caused us and particularly Ian a tremendous amount of distress. After about an hour we encountered our first really steep hill. At the top of it I waited for Ian with some anxiety. I thought that this would finish him off! Instead he appeared around the corner with a big grin all over his face! He'd discovered the brake problem and Luke had helped him fix it.