Day six - penrith to Peebles

Its raining....

The day began with Richard exclaiming, "it looks like rain, lets ride like the wind!".  This was met with derision, catcalls and general disbelief as Mike and Barry came around realising the words "it looks like rain" probably would have a lot more impact on their immediate future than riding like the wind.

After another Early starter breakfast at Little Chef (our diets have synchronised following three days in the room) we boarded the van to the start point back on the A6. 

The start was greatly anticipated as the Williams Team Pit Crew had spent a lot of the previous night fixing Barry's shoes whilst he sat on the couch and watched.  "I'm doing the blog" was my only defence and this was not greeted warmly.  After it was decided that not only did the shoes need fixing but my bike needed new pedals we set about a tactical mission the A-team would have been proud of to get the bike into the room unnoticed.

If only they had told me of the plan as I walked in with the bike behind the "diversionary" tactics of "how many free rooms are there?" happily saying hi to the receptionist.  Barry continued his helpfulness by then sticking his shoe to the pedal before it was attached to the bike. This meant Richard had to thread the peddle with the shoe and then wind the shoe until it could be removed.  Sorry :-).

Their efforts were not rewarded though as Barry managed to start without falling off the new pedals but not before the photo beneath was taken.  It was not as painful as it looks, and was done because Richard had started playing a game to come up with as many words as possible from the letters in Livestrong.  The current record is 106. 

Does my bum look big in these?

here comes the rain

The route took us up to Carlisle where Richard carried on a fine tradition he started in the training courses in relation to his bike computer.  These are small little devices that sit on the handlebars and tell the rider helpful information like cadence and speed which we have been using to measure our rides and keep everyone to acceptable pace so that we dont tire too easily.

Richards tradition though is to break them and his third today detached itself from the bike and bounced into the path of the oncoming traffic.  Despite the first few cars missing it, the second to last one connected perfectly and split the computer into a number of component parts.  Hence, Richard has been asking rather a lot what speed we are going today.

Leaving Carlisle, we stopped at a great cafe that is attached to a caravan park.  By this point, we had been travelling for around 20 miles in a heavy rain and we were soaked through our various waterproof coats that were not quite living up to the billing.  In particular this was the point Barry realised that his phone was no longer functioning which is a bit like him having had an arm surgically removed.

Now I have to be honest.  Having just spent twenty minutes writing this the computer crashed and I lost it.

:-(.

Given its gone midnight now I will update tomorrow on the trip into Scotland.   Sorry.

THANKS

The one thing I definitely want to have on here though is our thanks to Mike Shelley who has been with us driving the support van for the last six days but returns home tomorrow.

There is no word of a lie when we say we could not have done it without you.  You have truly been part of the team, joined in the banter, been exceptionally generous and above all of our expectations.  Thanks.