You don't always get what you wish for!

When planning this ride we felt the two days from south of the Lake District down to Herefordshire would we the recovery days between the hills of the North and the hills of the South West! After yesterday we certainly were hoping for a fast flat 85 miler with no complications. We didn't get that!

After a good breakfast - the porridge report is now officially closed! - we set off before 9am, it doesn't sound it but that's good. Sadly we set off without Steve's sat nav Garmin working, it seemed to have deleted the ride! Now in Scotland where the Garmin worked flawlessly you barely needed it, I mean its not difficult to navigate when it's "30 miles down the A82"! Across the fields of Shropshire however it would have been helpful, but instead we had to rely on the pages I had ripped out of a large atlas on which I had marked our route and then covered the pages in sticky backed plastic! This was not hi tech, but perfectly acceptable. The only problem is you have to stop more to check the map and this slows you down.

It did not slow us down as much as a strong and gusting head wind which bedevilled us all day. It made for a tough day but at least it didn't rain.

Well that's not quite true, it did rain briefly but at the time we were under a large oak tree sorting out a puncture. No one had been allowed to use the "p" word as we felt that if we talked about it then we would end up with punctures. Not rational I know but it worked for us for the last seven days. However my back tyre gave away and we all looked at each other to see if anybody knew what to do! We replaced the inner tube only for it to "pop" when inflated! So we did it again and this time it worked. This delayed us by close to an hour, there was a lot of thinking to be done as we all stood around and looked at my crippled steed!

We were a little behind schedule anyway due to the wind and due to spending a little longer at our first break as Mark's brother Guy met us for a coffee. As a result it was close to 2 o'clock and we still had 50 miles to ride. We set off trying to make up time only to be confronted by some significant hills around Shrewsbury. I haven't found the name for these hills, we made one up today but that can't be published! Whatever they are called they were unexpectedly steep! Indeed one of them, I think, was the most difficult on the ride so far. I know it wasn't an 8 mile climb like we faced in Scotland, but it was long and in parts incredibly steep.

We battled on, still into the wind, and rested briefly in Ludlow. What a lovely looking town not that we had time to enjoy it! There was still 25 miles to go to our stop in Lugwardine, just east of Hereford and we needed to get there so we could rest, eat, drink and of course blog! We decided to ride on the A49 which although busy was faster than going through the quieter back roads. This was a good strategy although a large hill at Hope-under-Dunmore was less than welcome. We arrived at 6.30pm and had a pretty good dinner in the local pub, whose landlord was either drunk, eccentric or probably both!

So it was not what we wished for but we battled through and now we are close to crossing the Seven Bridge and moving into the South West, another major milestone. All legs are tired and all bottoms sore but it was another major step forward, all the more satisfying given the challenges faced.

Now for the facts:

Stats for the day - 87 miles covered at an average speed of 13.4mph. Feet climbed over 5,500 feet climbed. Strong head wind!

Ale and Arse report - the Otter, from Devon, and Timothy Taylor's, from Yorkshire, were sampled. I asked the landlord why he didn't sell any local ales, he said because he didn't like any of them! Fair enough I guess. The Otter beat TT's and I look forward to drinking some when I get to Devon. The benefit of double cycling shorts seems to be wearing off and after a tough hill climb the pain is quite strong, so lots of standing when whizzing down the other side of the hills! All sorts of creams being applied, but I'm reconciled to it not getting any better!


Forecast for tomorrow - The weather looks damp, the wind sadly looks strong and we have some hills on way to Chepstow. After that we have the excitement of cycling over the Seven Bridge so hopefully it's not too windy! And then in Bristol we are meeting up with my mate Steve who will ride with us until Friday night. We are looking forward to that.

Finally I know a number of you have been trying to post comments on the blog but are struggling to succeed in this task. I have changed the settings to make this easier but I'm not sure if this has really changed anything! I much appreciated you trying to leave comments so I wish you best of luck in doing that!