Phew. Again. This is relentless. What we don't do for charidy..! 99 miles today to Carlisle. Didn't have enough energy to ride round the campsite for centurian status again. A good day all round. Perhaps due to the exhuberant send off Mrs Stevens gave us by tying baloons to our bikes - made a good picture and an interesting few miles. The ride started wet, of course, and we hit some very long and hard climbs early on.
But we made 30 miles before our first Full English of the trip. FEOB (FE On Board), as an old friend Mike Frain used to say, we then hit a lovely rolling valley before another beautiful monster. The route then took the old A6 road between the lakes and the dales, crossing the M6 about 10 times. We then turned into Fabian Cancellara and Bradley Wiggins timetrialling our way through to Penrith (with a double cake stop) and to Carlisle where we called it quits.
A few observations today. I look as though I have been through 10 rounds with Mike Tyson, the bags under my eyes are growing by the day. I have finally found a rattle on my bike after the last 200 miles! Cafés are better up north - independent ownership, table service, friendly staff, and quality cakes and flapjack, I had Guiness and chocolate cake today! So there we have it. 99 miles at an average of 11.6mph. Over half way.
Love and a rather thirst quenching can of coke at J38 services of the M6, J
Well done the Jim's! Just caught up with the blogs - having read them consecutively I am getting the impression this titanic effort is actually a thinly disguised tour of the UK's finest cake shops....Heather appears to be in on this and already has the Hob-Nobs for the Edinburgh stop. Lots of luck for the next bit, love, Helen
ReplyDeleteis mrs stevens your equivalent of the support cars? hope, like the odd stages of the tour this year, you are not using radios to keep in touch with mrs s... well done, hope you're enjoying the ales. shantha
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