Tour De France Blog II

Thursday morning dawned and I found Tim bright and ready for the off at my door at 8 a.m. After a spot of coffee we were ready to roll. Tim seemed to like to ride my heavily laden tourer better than his ultra-lightweight carbon racer, so I was happy enough with that so we swopped and took off up to Meadowhead. On the way down through Dronfield Tim realised he was only wearing one glove, and I was missing my SDP clips so we stopped in at James's Chesterfield where they were just opening the doors. I merrily fitted my new spd's while Tim inspected the stock and off we set, choosing the short section of the canal in preference to rush hour traffic to get us to the station, with only a slight glitch when I realise I couldn't get out of the SPD's as I negotiated the access barrier to the canal - quickly grabbing the wall was only to prevent a disastrous topple.

It transpired I hadn't done the bolts up tight enough and one had come out. A bit more adjustment had us on our way, emerging out of the canal, back on the road, negotiating the intimidating A61 roundabout and heading up towards Clay Cross (see my May 20 blog entry)
we enjoyed the ups and downs of this section, swopping bikes again near Ripley, stopped as is traditional at the co-op in Little Eaton for sustenance, and got onto the cycleway and through Derby in short order. Following route 6 now - what a blinder this route is, anyone who hasn't done this and still claims all sustrans routes are pants should really put up or shut up.

Following the route of a disused canal out of derby, then on a real canal for a bit before joining a disused railway, mostly tarmacced, then linking with the Cloud Trail and minor roads through rolling farmland, we kept up a good speed, despite a bit of headwind. Nevertheless our estimate of a 2 p.m. arrival at Leicester was optimistic - we saw off Loughborough in reasonably short order, chasing down the old A6, but it wasn't until 4 that we hit Leicester and found the Cycle Park, that excellent facility in the Town Hall where you can leave your bike, have a shower, get your bike fixed and buy some spares, meeting up with Mat who was to join us for the rest of the ride. We refreshed with tea & cake and as the market was closing I was able to pick up a tray of bananas which stayed with us for a few days.

However, as we left Leicester on the Great Central Way the heavens opened. Things got worse when, in the outer suburbs, Tim got a puncture which took 5 attempts to fix, and we spent 1 1/2 hours in a bus stop in in the rain trying to sort it out. Morale was low and both Mat and I were thinking of returning to Leicester (Mat would have been very happy to put us up) but Tim was determined to press on.

..to be continued..