At 7am it was a clear blue sky, then by 9 dark clouds had rolled over so we wore the same gear as yesterday. I changed Cherry’s saddle with the one off her bike from home that we had brought for just this eventuality, and tightened up the brakes which had felt a little weedy yesterday. Good full English breakfast, and we started off about 9:30.
Missed turning out of Bodmin but we soon realised the mistake, changed down to stop and the chain jumped off the lower ring. No probs to refit, and off the right way.
We had be warned it was going to be tougher than yesterday, and it was. Numerous steep descents to rivers and steep climbs along narrow country lanes. Cherry seemed to be enjoying the downs and here is a movie clip just seconds before the Towering Inferno event:
We were managing well till dropping down into St Neots when I felt the tandem going away from me, with the brakes pulled hard back to the stops. I had been gently braking till then or so I thought. F..k. They must have overheated. We rapidly gather speed, I told Cherry what has happening, she said try and pull into a side turning, but there wasn’t one we could use. The hill got steeper into the town, and we got faster. We were going to die.
Obviously we didn’t as I am writing this but it could have been curtains. We just screamed, and hurtled down, hoping there would be a) no cars, b) no sharp turns and c) a nice uphill around the corner. a) could happen at any time. b) was at the bottom of the hill. And c) was unknown. It is said you pray and your life flashes in front of you. It didn’t for me. I was just computing what options I had to slide into a wall, tip the bike over, crash into a parked car, but it went so quickly, I steered round the corner at the bottom of the hill and there was a hump backed bridge with a car going over (our direction) and I could see the road went up a hill and round another corner. It was going to be OK, I could if necessary go between the car and the parapet, but the car moved off with enough speed, we flew over the bridge, and rapidly slowed down as fast as we had speeded up. We stopped and collapsed, I was shaking with the adrenaline and shock, flet weak and wobbly. Cherry was remarkably calm, I thought she might have refused to do any more cycling, but she was OK to continue after I had checked the brakes. The rotors weren’t too hot, so I tightened them up and thought we could go on as long as we were careful on the downhills and would walk the steep sections down.
(The experts told me that it’s the callipers that heat up, and the plastic components in the cheaper models deform and loose their effectiveness. Nice to know after the event. So much for the bargain £300 tandem.)
In much better shape than we had any right to be, we continued along the route, looking out for the uphills to cycle up, and the downhills to walk down. On most downhills I felt the brakes were working and my speed was been checked, only once did we start to run away but as we were at a slow speed it was OK to stop and walk. As it happened, we only walked down 3 times.
11ese were at Minions, the highest village in Cornwall, at 12. Very entertaining owner and his wife, verging on the eccentric rude. Great toasted tea cakes.
Into Devon and it started to rain intermittently till lunch in Tiverton, which was soup and tea.
We then started the climb to Dartmoor. It started to rain again, more heavily. It got steeper, and longer. It went on for miles. It got colder. We zipped up the Gortex which didn’t work as advertised as we sweated more. But we made it. What a fantastic view looking back over the green fields, and forward to the moorland, dark and gloomy in the rain.
No point in hanging around, heads down and off we went. “Undulating” was as it was described, and it was. We could see the road ahead for miles, well at least as far as the rain squalls allowed, so we undulated with gusto. At one stage we zoomed down into what felt like hail and hit 40mph+.
The route turned left off Dartmoor down a narrow track, described as “gets steeper”. The brakes felt weakening, so discretion took over. We stopped, cycled back to the main road, feeling this would be safer though longer. There were a couple of swoops down and up, but then it was looking too swoopy with bends so we decided to call it a day, and called the rescue truck. Bike Adventures reckoned they would take 45 mins to get to us, so we gingerly continued down, cycling on the ups, into Mortenhampstead were we met the van.
54 miles in all which was just under the advertised distance so we felt good to have done this given the circumstances. Ian from BA proposed that we take the tandem to SJSCycles in Bridgwater the next day to see what they could do.
The evening quarters were thatched, chintzy, creaky and required you to bang your head on leaving. Ouch. We were in a hurry to get to the restaurant opposite, so Cherry got flustered and quite rightly irritated with the dodgey power shower, knobbled towels and lack of heating to dry out our gear. And we started to get downers on the future, Cherry giving her impression of Dads Army with “we all doomed” with this holiday, whereas I tried to keep up a chirpy “ it’ll be alright, at least we not yet dead”. It got more chirpier when we got the restaurant and joined Carl, Rita, Philip, Iain (2 Is) and Martin. We had a hilarious time but I can’t remember why. The waitress thought we were all mad. So in the end the day turned out well, an experience to remember but not savour. We went to bed, and I had difficulty getting to sleep as I relieved the nightmare of the ride down, and thought what could I have done differently? Well obviously bought a better tandem.
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