Monday 7 June 2010

Day 2 - Veryan to Okehampton via The Eden Project

We started the day with an attempt to use a jockey wheel to tension the chain but with no success.

We had breakfast and checked out whereupon the proprietors gave us a 10 pound donation to RP - Fighting Blindness which was very kind of them.  People here have been really friendly and helpful. The locals are also pretty good about cyclists - not all tourists are the same.

We then decided to take a more direct route to St Austell than the one we had planned. That would have been fine but for a map reading error on my part that added a couple instead. Damn!  We did eventually make it and found Halfords.  They didn't have an exact match for the needed part, but they had something that looked like it might work - sort of.

Professional cyclists have mechanics in cars. I brought Sandy :-).  He did a sterling job at getting the part to fit and giving me some drive again. Suddenly I was able to cycle up hills again - brilliant :-).

We set off for the Eden project which we found with only minor challenges and no major diversions.  What a fantastic place. We were time limited since we still had a planned 50+ miles to cover.  We spent an hour or so exploring and also had some lunch - a family meal between 2 of us. We could easily have spent a whole lot more time there.  We also got a discount on our entry tickets since we had arrived by bike.

We set off from the Eden project shortly after 3 to head for Okehampton. Lots of ups and downs - we walked up a few. We did a pretty good job of avoiding the main roads for the most part.  Just as we crossed into Devon we found a pub called The Royal Inn where we refilled our water bottles.  We didn't have time to stop for a beer unfortunately.  The barman regaled us with tales of another group of lejog cyclists which I will save for another time.
We eventually made it to Okehampton around 9 p.m. after a long day in the saddle.  We found a pub/b&b called The Fountain Inn - we had to eat before having a shower since they were getting close to the end of their food hours.
Tomorrow it looks like it will rain all day.
We are pleased to still be on schedule after yesterday's mishap.

We covered 74.5 miles today making 146 in total. Slightly more than planned but not too unexpected. Yesterday we climbed and descended about 5500 feet. Todat we added another 7000.

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