We managed to find a bike shop that was able to repair our wheel quickly so today we were keen to hit the road early. Our aim was to make Wasdale YHA for the evening, which was 85 miles away. To start we headed up the A6 towards Lancaster, which is just over 20 miles of flat fast going.
Unfortunately, Rachel's knee was causing her lots of pain once more, so despite her valiant effort we dropped her off at the station to catch the train home... again. This time, however, the fare to Swansea was an exhorbitant £90, coutesy of Virgin Rail. And many thanks to the ticketing jobsworth who wasn't any help at all in trying to get a cheaper fare. In the end Rachel managed to get a tenner off by buying individual tickets for each leg of the journey, rather than one straight through ticket.
From Lancaster we turned off and headed North again until we turned off towards the lakes. The sun even came out for a while, and Den and I celebrated by (quite unnecessarily) breaking out our sun glasses. We just didn't want to think that we had carried them all the way across the UK for no reason.
Anyhow, that sunny patch was short lived and a quick stop to put our waterproofs back led to the discovery of another broken spoke, but with nowhere to get it repaired we carried on. We stopped in Broughton in Furness for an afternoon choc ice, and cycling up the hill out of town I noticed a pronounced wobble coming from the rear wheel. We'd lost two more spokes.
Something was not right with the wheel. With 17 miles to go over high exposed moorland, we made the decision to stop in Broughton for the night, rather than press on and risk mechanical breakdown in the middle of no where. So instead of climbing tomorrow morning it looks like I'm going to have to spend time repairing the wheel. Let's hope we can get this repaired quickly as we can't afford to fall too far behind schedule.
Unfortunately, Rachel's knee was causing her lots of pain once more, so despite her valiant effort we dropped her off at the station to catch the train home... again. This time, however, the fare to Swansea was an exhorbitant £90, coutesy of Virgin Rail. And many thanks to the ticketing jobsworth who wasn't any help at all in trying to get a cheaper fare. In the end Rachel managed to get a tenner off by buying individual tickets for each leg of the journey, rather than one straight through ticket.
From Lancaster we turned off and headed North again until we turned off towards the lakes. The sun even came out for a while, and Den and I celebrated by (quite unnecessarily) breaking out our sun glasses. We just didn't want to think that we had carried them all the way across the UK for no reason.
Anyhow, that sunny patch was short lived and a quick stop to put our waterproofs back led to the discovery of another broken spoke, but with nowhere to get it repaired we carried on. We stopped in Broughton in Furness for an afternoon choc ice, and cycling up the hill out of town I noticed a pronounced wobble coming from the rear wheel. We'd lost two more spokes.
Something was not right with the wheel. With 17 miles to go over high exposed moorland, we made the decision to stop in Broughton for the night, rather than press on and risk mechanical breakdown in the middle of no where. So instead of climbing tomorrow morning it looks like I'm going to have to spend time repairing the wheel. Let's hope we can get this repaired quickly as we can't afford to fall too far behind schedule.
Final Team Photo
...and she's off to the train
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