Floods, flowers and food

Just so that you don't think I was exaggerating about the weather: the pub
I went to for dinner tonight was flooded! I squelched around on their
carpet in my Tevas. The flowers here are more advanced than at home:
foxgloves everywhere, in mid-May. And I saw the first poppy of the summer
this morning. Talking of pubs, as I was... I aim to eat and drink local
produce to the extent possible on this ride. Along with my pasties today, I
was introduced to the fruity charms of the 'tea treat', an oversized
saffron bun. And for dinner, Cornish cider (6 percent, hic) and chiken
tikka masala, which is local fare throughout England.

Dodgy knee

I'd have loved to make an upbeat entry, but two Ibuprofen haven't helped.
My left knee - the one that caused me to give up running - hurts. We'll see
how it goes overnight. I know its patterns of misbehaviour, and it might
just be a touch stiff rather than agonising. At the moment, though, it's
making me very twitchy. The cycling went OK today: I didn't notice my knee
was bad until I got off the bike. There were a lot of cyclists at Land's
End, all of them planning to go a lot faster than me, albeit in company.
Four lads from London with a target of eight days. I hope they had a good
day's riding. We (I) had a couple of hours of 'torrential downpours' (Met
Office's words, not mine) but negligible wind, at least, and clouds all day
so low you felt you could grab them. A nice lady outside the pasty bakery
gave me a fiver, and a man on the spectacular bridge at Wadebridge (built
1468!) stopped his Dawes Super Galaxy, took my photo and did the same. Soon
I'll learn to post photos so you can see.

Arrived at Lands End

(On the train through Somerset) Modern man cannot switch off straight away.
Yesterday - intended as a quiet day at home, gardening and packing panniers
- turned into a minor media circus. A TV crew even filmed me packing my
panniers. Today I was making last-minute appointments to pop in at a
research lab (Portsmouth) and a hospital (Edinburgh). The ride from Kings
Cross to Paddington was, unsurprisingly, horrible. And when I should have
relaxed on the train I started doing a Sudoku instead. Aagh. (Dawlish,
South Devon) Palm trees in the town square, strangely eroded red sandstone
cliffs. I'm far from Cambridge. Have I changed time-zone? (Land's End) low
cloudn but mercifully neither wind nor rain, yet.

Different folks

I hope you all had as lovely a weekend as I did. Three visitors descended on Horningsea for a national cycling conference that was held in Cambridge. I think they were a bit worried to begin with, 'cos we're not that close to the middle of the city. But when they found they were eating eggs from our very own hens and drinking water from our very own well, they soon got reconciled to the slightly longer than expected ride into town.

What different folks they are. A cycle politician, one of the geniuses behind the magnificent Facility of the Month website http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.co.uk/ and a fundamentalist: don't give us crap cycle lanes, just enforce road rules, apply sensible road design and cyclists, drivers and pedestrians will rub along just fine. A man who has devoted a significant proportion of his life to training youngsters to cycle safely. And one whose idea of a good time is to cycle 1200 km in 90 hours (including sleeping time). They were all very supportive of my LE->JOG ambitions.

On Sunday we went for a long and slow ride. 50 miles including a cafe and two pubs, in glorious sunshine, chatting our way through the countryside. Just what I needed to reinforce my growing confidence that the physical strain of my forthcoming ride will not be the hard bit (except maybe that daily confrontation with my hard new saddle).

First Transport-Policy rant

I wondered, when Bob set up this blog for me, what sort of things I would write about on it. Cycling, obviously. The wonders of the English and Scottish countryside. Getting lost. The weather. Regional cuisine. Brain tumours and healthcare funding policy. Charming folk encountered en route...

But I admit from the beginning I knew the day would come when I wanted to let off steam about transport policy in Britain. Riding a bike can turn one into a bit of an eco-warrior. Disputes over road space with 4x4s, breathing in diesel fumes shortly after breakfast on the way to work, they chip away at one's natural tolerance for other people's transport choices, and occasionally lead one to think it's all the Government's fault. How about this one?

My brother Drew is bravely accompanying me by bike most of the way from Petersfield to Warrington, perhaps 220 miles over three days. I asked him last night whether he had had any luck in identifying a fast, economical and comfortable train journey back to Brighton, where he lives, from Warrington. No, he said. The journey would have to be made on a Sunday. It would have taken nine hours and cost £90 by train. His cheaper, faster and more comfortable option? Taxi from Warrington to Manchester, British Airways flight to Gatwick, pickup in van and drive back to Brighton. Three hours and £88. All that including the bike. I applaud British Airways, especially for taking the bike. But how, in all honesty, can a rational person keep their greenhouse-gas emissions low when those are the options? Answers please on a recycled postcard to Sir Nicholas Stern, HM Treasury (ex).

The half-way mark

You have all been receiving my standard thank-you note from Justgiving. But THANK YOU! from me directly, too. Each time someone makes a donation, I get an email, and each time I look to see your comments and they make me smile, as does your generosity. So while I have not yet reached even the starting line of the bike ride, let alone the half-way mark (which I think comes somewhere around Warrington), YOU have reached the half-way mark. Thank you again. Keith and Jackie Price were the ones who pushed me past the £5,000 barrier.

I'm acting as though the ride itself will be the easy bit. Perhaps it will be: we'll see. As Tamsin said, the distance will make Singapore to KL look like a walk in the park. My confidence is high at the moment, though: the new Super Galaxy (bike, for the uninitiated) is such a delight to ride! I got rid of my old racing bike nearly three years ago, and I had forgotten how responsive, light and fast a bike can be, until this last week.

It's not about the bike!

Oh yes it is! Or at least it is today. Last night I returned home to find a large but suspiciously slim box with DAWES written along it in big letters. I sawed my way into it using the carving knife (sorry Sabina) and found a lovely gleaming bike IN BITS. That's how they despatch them. The next three hours were spent in baffled industry trying to put the bits together, in the conservatory (sorry again Sabina). Today I gave up and brought the nearly-assembled bike to my favourite bike shop, Blazing Saddles, for final assembly. Now I know what bicycle dealers do. The bike is bronze-coloured. Sabina calls it brown. Why is it that women and men never agree on the name of a colour? Is it bronze or is it brown? See for yourself. http://www.dawescycles.com/dawes/super-galaxy-1.htm