5hrs 30mins in the saddle
'A day on the A49'
We woke to an absolute honking room in the hostel. As you would imagine 6 boys in a sweaty dorm room filled with cycling kit wasn't pleasant. The driveway to the hostel was a mental hill so we were glad to find out we did not have to go out the way we came in. Instead we were pointed down the back of the hostel to a path that goes over the river. What the YHA staff didn't tell us was that we had to go right at the fork. Instead we went left in the direction we wanted to head but it came to a dead end 500 yards along the path. Fraser took a jog along 4 fields to try find the mythical bridge but returned with bad news. At 8.30am a brisk 5 minute jog shouldn't get you dripping with sweat but this was an indicator of another hot day of cycling. We doubled back and eventually found the bridge but lost about an hour! Bruce commented that "if a shortcut was easy then it would just be the way!" One good thing about this detour was that we could see the hostel, an old rectory, in all its splendor in the basin of the valley.
We stopped at Ludlow after 45 miles for lunch where the only shower of the day caught us out as we sat in the market place. After lunch Fraz didn't know we were turning off the road so early and ended up at the bottom of the hill trying to find a right turn to meet back up with us. We powered onto Much Wenlock on the undulating hills making 17-18mph for a good 12 mile stretch without stopping which was a great effort by the boys. Fraser nearly caused a bit of carnage when a metal water bottle flew out of his pannier at 25mph and bounced down the road nearly taking out Andris, myself and a car. I ended up careering over it as it was too unpredictable to avoid and luckily there was no damage to me or my bike. Phew
Approaching Telford we enjoyed the benefit of some big hills then made the unfortunate decision to climb the Wrekin instead of going via Ironbridge. It was one of the toughest and longest climbs yet. I have spent a lot of time visiting Telford over the years and forgotten how big the hill was. I had hoped the road would merely skirt around the bottom!
Today was a good solid days riding with some better cloud cover which really helped even though it was so warm. By lunchtime, Nick finally got into the habit of getting into a higher gear when coming to a stop as starting off again is much easier. Also after day 3 a quick tutorial about using the full range of gears made Nick into a much better cyclist as he didn't ruin himself by lunch time grinding up hills.
I was having a problem today with sweat and sun lotion stinging my eyes so I employed the old school Jim Leighton tactic of putting Vaseline over my eyebrows. It worked a treat!
Once we arrived at my aunt's house, Suzanne greeted us with a cool beer and the biggest spread of pasta bolognese and pizza which was most satisfying. Definately up there with the best scran of the trip and it was promptly demolished with enough room left for a Danish Pasty. We arrived at 6pm and this was the first evening we could relax before dinner.
At this point Grum had hopped on a train to Birmingham to visit our buddy JJ Chalmers in the military hospital. JJ had been caught in an IED explosion in Afghanistan only a couple of weeks before we departed for Land's End. I hope the surprise helped cheer him up and that he is well on the mend to better health.
Nick solved his lack of a towel problem today by stealing Grum's after he had jumped on the train to Birmingham! As for forgetting his sleeping bag he just had to suck it up and sleep in clothes!!
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