Shopping Orders
Foolishly, Cathy asked the team if they needed anything from the shops today. James asked for a new battery for his bike computer (he's riding without instrumentation at the moment), while Matt asked for prunes. Therefore tomorrow hopefully James will know how far he's gone, while Matt will have gone!
Initial progress was fast, as we seemed to dip in and out of Wales - evidenced by the high incidence of dyslexic sign-writers. The scenery was fantastic and the pace quite fast. Unfortunately, James had to call a drug stop early in the ride as his left knee was starting to hurt. A quick Ibuprofen was popped, which didn't seem to do a lot - so he adopted the approach of telling himself to just man up and get on with it, and telling the pain to take itself elsewhere. It retreated a bit, ending up sulking in the corner, only to reappear on and off during the day.
Morning coffee was had at a Shire Horse centre - though James caused some consternation by pointing to the Shetland pony grazing next to the cafe and asking for his money back under the trades descriptions act. We then stopped for a very nice lunch - BLT sandwiches for at least two of team BLT - at the Delamere Station Cafe. What was nicer was that Cathy managed to join us. Actually surprising, as she'd gone off for a walk in the Delamere forest park, wandered off the track and got thoroughly lost!
As we progressed towards Runcorn, we were amazed by the beauty of the Cheshire countryside - very rich greens and gently rolling hills. Matt kept getting excited by the fact that we were near 'WAG country'. Something to do with football, apparently.
Runcorn And The Mersey
Our major challenge was to traverse Runcorn and find the Mersey Bridge. This proved problematic, as although there were cycle routes marked, they didn't really indicate where they were going. We stopped a nice lady on a bike who immediately uttered those dread words to anyone who asks for directions (apart from "If I were going there, I wouldn't start from here" of course) which were "Right, turn round...". Alison turned out to be brilliant. She pointed out that were were heading for one of the 'less nice' areas of Runcorn, said we could follow her and she'd show us the first stages of the way. Thanks to her directions, we finally managed to cross the Mersey on what turned out to be, on closer inspection, a rather rusty bridge.
Thunder, Lightning And Screaming Girls
As we crossed the river, the black clouds which had been following us turned into a full-fledged thunderstorm, with matching rain. Thus it was that as we passed one of the local schools in St. Helens we were treated to a mass girly screaming from the outpouring pupils as lightning flashed around us. By now we were fully wet and cold, and - yet again - sort of just wanting to get to the end of the day.
It took quite some time to get through the built up area. Cycling in traffic is always a challenge, it's usually a matter of being assertive (Joe was worried with James's description of 'combative' cycling) and making sure that the drivers know that you're going there! However, we finally were out of the conurbation and en route for the Ribble Valley.
Finally, after only one unintended detour, we crested a long, steep hill to be presented with a panorama of the Ribble Valley bathed in a thunderstorm-cleared evening light. An even longer and steeper descent brought us to Rose Cottage B&B not a moment too soon.
Off to Gretna and Scotland tomorrow!
Daily Statistics:
Miles ridden: 95 miles
Thunderstorms endured: 1
Bridges Crossed: 1
Counties Crossed: No idea.
We're so pleased it was only the GPS that had ground to a halt - we were convinced you'd decided to catch the train home as 'you' were stuck at Delamere. But it's rather a time-waster following you, so it was probably a good thing that the tracking stopped!
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