Afterthoughts

Its been a week now and the Matrix has asserted itself. The reality of cycling day in, day out, is fading. Before it all goes here are some thoughts and thanks.

Firstly, the ride is doable by most people if you are a) reasonably cycling fit or b) bloody minded and determined. Its helps being both. The enormity of the distance and unknown nature of the hills ahead was off putting at the start, but by breaking it down into chunks and focusing on the next hill, descent, turning, or tea room it was doable. Then it was just a case of getting up each day and doing it again. And again for 15 groundhog days. Having good kit helps, especially waterproofs. Oh, and a bike.

It would not however have been possible without my Stoker. She allowed the escapade to take shape, then reformed it into a tandem ride. She was always in good humour, with a smile and support (except when dumped into a bed of nettles). She was the positive one, even after the St Neots transcendental experience, whereas sometimes I wondered what we had got into with the dark clouds and hosing down from the heavens. And she did pedal hard, despite the comments from many we passed "hey, you know she not pedalling at the back". Ha ha not after the umpteenth time.

Bike Adventures were excellent. Kevin's routes were as off road as you can get without being off road, and avoided the traffic at the expense of some hills. But what goes up comes down as we found, and unfortunately also vice versa. The B&B's were as good as you could get in the localities, the campsite teas were welcoming, and the backup with vans and sweepers was reassuring (and we did require support once). In particular thank you Ian for easing me into Robin Thorn's idiosyncratic priority process...hence

next has to be Robin Thorn from SJS Cycles in Bridgwater who supplied a superb Thorn Raven Discovery Marathon Tandem in an afternoon. We couldn't have broken down in a better place in the UK. The Ride was rescued.

The other riders made the trip. We met nearly all of the 37, though some of the campsiters were fleeting greetings. Though circumstances meant we spent most time with our 'lodging' set, all were unfailing helpful, positive, supportive, humorous and in some cases hysterically so. I can't mention everyone by name, so I won't mention any except Martin who rode with Cherry on her solo day, and Rita who acted as bell hop with luggage, concierge for booking dinner, and washer woman with the laundry.

The planning for the ride, with the enroute direction turns, were made possible and enjoyable with www.bikehike.co.uk. I was able to plot the routes for each day then download to the Garmin, giving reassurance we were on course, or as sometimes happened had missed a turning. Please use this site for route planning and though free you can make small donations to cover their costs on their home page.

The Garmin Edge 605 hardware worked as advertised and remained waterproof. But not so with the Garmin software testing and release process. Just before the Ride I upload V2.7, only to find that it failed to keep the history detail of tracks, only the summary. I just uploaded a patch fix V2.8 and it has erased everything, I remain to see if it now works. Not impressed.

I was impressed though with www.instamapper.com. This has an app for the Blackberry which allowed sending and logging our route realtime on a website, all for free. Worked solidly in the background. Others could see our progress throughout the day.

Finally, the UK countryside is superb. Get away from the south east and the towns, and its upliftingly green (we now know first hand why that is), pastoral and Shire-like. Tolkien knew this. The people we met were delightfully friendly and some donated without prompting, for example an unnamed pensioner who gave 5 pounds. The Hodgsons gave us a wonderful welcome in Clitheroe. The Crask Inn and their quirky service. Too many to mention. Thank you all.

And thank you fair reader for staying the course with us.