Back to the Lakes

Our junior host Joseph decided to give us an early morning call creeping in and whispering to his Dad who was celebrating his birthday today “should I jump on each of them to wake them up?” After breakfast and a wide and varied cabaret act courtesy of Joseph, including issuing us all with musical instruments, playing trains and hula hooping, we packed the car and waved goodbye, only to realise just in the nick of time that with the bikes on the roof of the car we wouldn’t be able to get out of the usual exit from our night’s stay, phew disaster avoided!! We then drove back to Rheged for the fourth time in 3 days; their CCTV security team must be very interested in why we’re visiting so often!! Starting out on the bikes at 10.40am, our latest start to date meant we’d achieved a new personal best immediately. Riding along Ullswater we loosened off the legs in preparation for the big climb of the day Kirkstone Pass, a 1500ft climb over the fells to Windermere. At last we benefited from a tailwind, which helped us up the climb and with the sun shining we enjoyed a speedy descent topping 40 plus mph on the run into Windermere and lunch. The sun continued to shine throughout the afternoon as we passed into Lancashire and we rode through the busy city centre of Lancaster, stopping at Garstang for a coffee and cake refuel. As we entered the outskirts of Preston at around 6pm the rain started to fall and Andy needed to stop for a pit stop (or at least that’s what Jon thought he said!) whilst awaiting his return there was a faint hissing sound and low and behold Jon had suffered his second puncture of the challenge. A quick tube change was performed and thereafter we put our foot to the floor and pedalled through the dark early evening rain to the finish for the day in Croston. A swift car transfer to our nights accommodation at the Peverel development in Southport allowed us to quickly get showered, changed and head out to refuel, unfortunately all we could find was a Chinese takeaway, as everywhere else was closed. Tomorrow we head on South to Shrewsbury, having to negotiate Widnes, Runcorn and Chester on the way. Hopefully no more punctures as we’re running out of spare tubes. Total distance today 95 miles, total distance completed to date 668 miles.