Today was a 105 miles ride from London to Peterborough. I was glad to see the back of London. Impressive city it may be but not a cycling paradise - goodness knows how many sets of traffic lights we had to cross, and 2 punctures in the first 7 miles suggest the streets are paved with glass, not gold, Mr Whittington.
We had the typical British 4 seasons in one day - including rain, wind, sunshine, sometimes all at once, but we all made it back in one piece. We took in three landmarks - The American Cemetery (poignant and immaculate), Home Fen (under sea level, and underwhelming), and Peterborough Cathedral (impressive) - see photos attached.
As usual, a few stories were recounted over dinner and, embarrassingly, I featured in the most talked about.
Dave, Noodles (Eric) and I rode with the middle paced group on day 1. It is a terrific group but today as we grew in confidence, we three got ideas above our station and formed a small breakaway team. We did pretty well but, on more than one occasion, our good work was undone by the suspect navigator with the GPS (yes, it was me, which would be no surprise to my wife) and having left the group in our tracks, by the time we got back on track we would rejoin them sheepishly - from behind. The worst incident was at a turn off the road onto a cycle track. The problem being we didn't quite make it to the tarmac and instead went through the first gap... onto a guided bus track. Miraculously, I escaped unscathed but Noodles and David with a shredded tyre and puncture, respectively, can attest to the fact that the concrete troughs that are guided bus lanes are not at all good for bikes. Fortunately spares and labour were on hand thanks to Barry, Richard and Steve, and our zig zag journey resumed though not before our mini team was cruelly christened 'The Bus Route *******'! Photographic evidence is attached.
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