The Diary - Part Two

Day 2 - Monday 3rd July

If Day 1 was a trial for us, then Day 2 turned out to be full of tribulations.

My dodgy knee was causing me a whole host of problems, although I found that dosing myself up on Ibuprofen and keeping the knee directly above my ankle whilst riding kept the pain down to a bearable level.

We got on the road nice and early, as planned, and headed from Golant Youth Hostel down to the Brodinnick ferry. So far so good. After disembarking, we made swift progress to Looe where we stopped for a 10 minute breather (and Martin's obligatory Irn Bru) before climbing the hill out of the town towards Torpoint.

And then it happened. Doug picked up a puncture - his second of the trip so far (we had fixed one on the sie of the road somewhere in the Cornish Lanes on Sunday). A bit unlucky to have a second, we though, but fixed it nonetheless. 100 yards along the road, it went again. Clearly there was a major problem here.

That problem turned out to be not just the state of Doug's tyre, but the fact that not one of us had bought a spare along (at this stage we were ignorant of the existence of folding tyres) - only inner tubes. Standing in a gateway being eaten alive by horseflies and all manner of other flying insects, we discussed what to do next. Matt, Helen and Martin were already 4 miles up the road.

With the nearest bike shop some 14 miles away, it was clear we had a major logistical problem in replacing Doug's tyre, so we decided to bodge it. I had packed some electricians tape in my panniers especially for such emergencies and we layered it on the inside of Doug's delapidated tyre. But, would it do the trick? We got back on the bikes and waved goodbye to the gathered masses of flies, wasps and bees.

A few miles on, tyre still intact, we found Helen and the other lads lounging in the shade of a tree. Matt's brakes were starting to rub against his wheel rims and so he was busy adjusting them.

Doug, worried about the tyre, decided to press on towards Torpoint and perhaps Plymouth, hoping to be able to find a bike shop and get a replacement tyre on his bike before we could catch him. As Doug cycled off into the midday sun, the remaining four of us agreed to pair off and meet in Torpoint. Helen and I set off first expecting my knee to slow us down, while Martin waited for Matt to put his bike back together.

Helen and I made good progress and were nearing Hessenford when I glanced back to see if I could see Matt and Martin. Unfortunately I could only see one. It transpired that Martin and Matt had become briefly separated at exactly the wrong moment. A quick call to Matt's mobile confirmed the worst. He had taken a wrong turning and was heading towards Plymouth - but the long way round. So now we were down to three.

We three pushed on to Torpoint where we thought our luck was starting to turn (little did we know). Right on our route down to the Torpoint/Plymouth ferry was a bike shop and outside was Doug, putting the wheel back on his bike, complete with brand spanking new tyre! Phew! We boarded the ferry and phoned to see how Matt was progressing.

Matt's little detour was almost at an end and he was entering Plymouth. However, he had another problem. His brakes weren't at fault for the earlier rubbing - it was his wheel starting to buckle and it was getting worse. Time for the second bike shop visit of the day!

The famous five were finally reunited in the cafe of a Morrisons supermarket somewhere in Plymouth. But, by this stage it was around 4pm and we still had to cycle across Dartmoor. We were getting concerned that we might not make it as far as Steps Bridge.

As we reached Yelverton, some 10 miles further on, Matt's wheel began buckling again. The shop in Plymouth clearly hadn't done anything to fix the problem. Matt removed his mudguard and slackened off the brakes to give the warped wheel room to manoevre whilst Doug once again powered ahead to see if he could find somewhere to buy our dinner in Princetown.

He did. Doug managed to persuade a local shopkeeper to open her shop to let him purchase a selection of supernoodles. Doug also had time to find out that his bike tool had a spoke key on it and so when the rest of us caught up, Matt tightened his spokes to stop the wheel buckling further. Worryingly, the sun was beginning to set.

Dartmoor at dusk is a beautiful place. Unless you're a short-sighted sheep who cannot see Matt Claisse in full flight on his bike. From where I was sitting it looked like the said sheep deliberately threw himself in front of Matt. How both managed to escape relatively injury free, goodness only knows.

As we descended off Dartmoor, the failing light and surrounding trees made it pretty much impossible to see where we were going. Nonetheless, a feast of supernoodles (and, as it turns out, a couple of frozen pizzas found for us by the Youth Hostel warden) awaited and so when we finally arrived at Steps Bridge at 9.45pm, it was with relief that the day was finally over.

Surely things could only get better....

Day: 2, Miles: 67.2, Cycling time: 5hrs 45min, Ave Speed: 11.3mph, Max speed: 47.8mph