"The Final Countdown"

(Europe) 

Your intrepid explorer en route, outside the present Mrs Ives' emporium in fair Knaresborough http://www.mungodeli.co.uk/,  to Pateley Bridge (Yorkshire Dales) as part of a 'shake down' to see if the bike copes and the kits fits and works on a camping trip. To my horror all the clobber comes to around 20 kilograms and the hill between Bedlam and Burnt Yates will always be part of my psychotherapy session for years to come! Got to Pateley Bridge when it started to rain. If that wasn't diffiicult enough then a bloke appeared to casually chat, as I furiously wrestled with tent and panniers amongst the rain drops, to tell me that he had cycled from Lincolnshire on a 'sit up and beg' with only 8 gears and was on his way to The Lake District. He volunteered, when I asked him how long it took to ride here, that he didn't carry a watch because that was for work and not a holiday? I did quietly wonder how he worked out when to take his medication. 

Size matters apparently....



Anyway rain aside the camping and bike worked well and I came back to meet with the weighing scales in order to try and lose a kilogram or two.

This is the abode (on your left) where one friend's wife did comment that, in this case, size does matter. Maybe not big enough but heavy enough for me!


Well broadly that is that and after 1,500 miles of training and trying everything out then I am as ready as I ever will be and on July 1st then I cycle for that ferry. In the interim it is being an Oxfam Steward at Glastonbury where I will be by myself with 177,000 people....oh yes and the eldest...Katrina.