We woke up bright anD early to be welcomed by Ashley and Leo. Jane got in the kitchen and started making breakfast while Mrs. Brown got the boys ready for the day. We were a little slow to start today, but we knew that we had to crack on and get the miles in so that we can get to Truro.
We are meeting my parents, my sister and her boyfriend along with our friends Hayley and Steve, so we really did want to get to Truro quickly today.
The sun was shining, and Jane was getting very hot and soon started shedding layers and seeing as I was already in a T Shirt things were getting very damp, and we were drinking a lot of fluids, and we were finding it hard work to get any miles covered, and the sun was quite literally frying us.
We had to go over the Tamar Bridge today which was quite nice, and we knew that when we got over this bridge, we would be in Cornwall so one step closer to Truro and of course, the end of our trip.
We stopped a few times to refill our drink bottles and to get ice creams and generally try to break the journey up a bit. We were both feeling the heat taking its toll on us, and we were getting pretty tired and so we found a nice shady spot on the side of the road where we had a little bit of a nap which was rather nice and well needed.
When we woke up I got up and brushed the freshly cut grass off my legs to realise that I had mud all over my shorts and as you do you give it a sniff to make sure it is actually mud… not in this case it was a big steaming smudged dog turd. Obviously, when the grass got cut the dog poo got mashed up and became invisible until some unsuspecting cyclist comes for a nap. Fantastic!!
I decided that I was going to change my shorts as I was not going to carry on cycling with dog poo on me so I quickly dropped my shorts and I was wearing a nice fresh pair of shorts and the old ones were double bagged and put in the top of my panniers. Oh and I could tell that this really tickled jane and I spose you could say it was Karma but hey ho never mind.
I managed to get my fastest recorded speed which was 46.4mph which was very fast and I also almost had a huge wipeout but was able to recover from it but to say that it left me a little bit anxious was an understatement. I was leaning into a tight right hand bend and hit a little bit of gravel and the bike started to drift towards a wall and I just hung on and managed to get away with it.
After a few hours of cycling we were very near to Truro and once again we decided to start using the cycle routes and like usual they where hard to find and keep on. However around 16:00 we arrived in Truro and my sister had already arrived and checked in and was in a pub, but I knew that we had to run some repairs on the bikes before we got started on the beer.
Jane checked us in and I asked the Hotel owner if there was somewhere I could do some running maintenance on the bikes, and he showed us around to the garages where he had a full shed of tools and of course, a place for us to store our bikes, which was a result. I got to work straight away and started cleaning the chains of the bikes and re oiling along with adjusting gears and brakes.
Both bikes were going through brakes due to the extra weight, and this took a lot for them to stop and so there was always constant adjustment and as always, my bike was the worst to adjust. It never seems to go right on my bike. Where as Jane’s bike seems to adjust really easily and is done quickly.
With all the bikes ready for the following day we locked them away in the garage and headed to our room, which was very nice 🙂
I decided to make use of the shower and bath and have a red hot bath first to get off all the oil and brake dust then jump in the shower afterwards. You can tell that I was not paying for the water and heating bill 🙂 once I was relatively clean and had clean shorts and T-shirt on Deb’s and her boyfriend Jay turned up to our room where we chatted then our friends Hayley and Steve arrived.
This was it we were all almost here except my parents, but they were not expected until later.
We all headed down to the Hotel bar where we drank our free drinks that the hotel gave us and generally chatted.
Hayley and Steve were going to be joining us on our last day of cycling as they also wanted a bit of a challenge, and this challenge was going to be more for Steve than for anybody else.
Steve could not ride a bike six weeks ago and he has been practicing around his town, and he was getting the hang of it so like me he likes a bit of a challenge and decided he was going to do the last 30 miles of cycling. After a quick discussion we said that we could get their bikes out of their car and get them locked away in the garage with ours so that they would be ready for us in the morning.
Straight away Jay realises that Steve has not put his bike together properly and has put the front forks on back to front, and we all started laughing at Steve mistake and to his defense if he had never ridden a bike, he would not have known the difference. I quickly went and got some tools and soon realised that I did not have the right sized Alan key to adjust it so it was going to be a quick drive to Halfords to buy some.
We get back and I swap the front forks around, and I also adjust the brakes as these were not only lose but had a lot of travel on them. So within about an hour the bike was ready for the ride and with a quick adjustment on the gears. we were ready to get back to the hotel and get a few more beers.
My parents were not due until about 21:00 and so we made the decision to head out and get some food from the centre of Truro as myself and Jane were now getting very hungry and so Jane was getting grumpy 🙂
We went to ASK in the center and started ordering our food and still taking the mick out of Steve 🙂 We had just finished eating our starters, and my parents rang to say they here on their way to ASK. The staff had to work hard and get another table added, and they ordered their food when they finally got in 🙂 There is nothing better than pizza after a few pints.
Once the food was done and paid for we all headed back to the hotel as we all had a massive day ahead of us. That was it, we all sauntered off to bed and tried to get some sleep.
Thanks again to Richard and Mrs Brown for putting us up for the night it was very much appreciated 🙂