A week of bugger all - then a bit of a bike ride

After a grand day out with Ilkley CC last week proved to be the laziest in living memory - did no exercise whatsoever, ate the odd pie and drank fairly extensively (although my attendance at my first mortgage industry awards do in a few years was booze free).

The Friday saw me drinking a pint of lager beer at about 9:45 in that most salubrious of establishments, Weatherspoons on Park Row.  The reason being we were off to see the one dayer between England and Sri Lanka.  There'd been much discussion about legwear, but in the end I went with a short and a flip-flop.  Had I gone with a longer trouser and a fuller footwear, who knows what the day would have brought, but as it happened I had a bizarre flip-flop related accident at about 1 1/12 pints in and found myself being stitched up, anaesthetic free by a doctor somewhere under the East Stand.  Ouch.

I should stress that this was not a pissed-up, stagger into something injury (the stitches would have hurt less if it had been) - so I was fully able to ask the doctor the burning question:

"Will I be able to ride my bike on Monday?"

"I wouldn't advise it" he said "how far?"

"Erm...130 miles..."

"No."

What does he know?  He might know about stitches and stuff, but he doesn't understand just how stiff a bike shoe is, right?

Anyway - several beers later I got home and tried my shoe on - my eyes lit up, Cindarella-like, as I realised that it fitted!  Now all I had to do was cope with the pain.

I managed a short ride round the block on Sunday, then on Monday was up at 5 to drive to Crossflatts for our "Bike to Work" charity ride.  Me, Rob, Herb and Rhys Silverwood (surely not a real name) were joined by our domestiques Rick and Jim, plus the support team of Rachel and Jo, and set off up through Micklethwaite.  Something of a leg-stretcher for 6am, but we were soon through Otley and heading for Ripon.

Near Knayton, north of Thirsk

Herb's Edge 705 took us down a weird off road stretch, but this proved to be a short-cut and deposited us just up from Maccy D's, our proscribed meeting point in Ripon.  A sausage Mc Muffin, a check of the map, then it was off north again.  I can relate to the readership that there are no hills between Ripon and Doxford, so we made brilliant time to Brompton near Nortallerton, where we met the girls and ate some sausage rolls.  We said tata to Jim and Rick here, then the team was down to four.  We again made good time to Sedgefield, via a private road threatening dire consequences if we were caught (we weren't).  At Sedgefield the sun came out and the temperature rocketed to a level at which Rob felt able to remove his vest.

The bridge over the Wear

The last section to Doxford was a bit of a navigational nightmare, as my Edge 800 hadn't got the route on, but we eventually made it with the easiest 90 miles on the clock I can remember.  A quick whizz round with our buckets and we were off again, now relying on destinations keyed into my Edge 800.  We were headed for Jarrow, which meant crossing the Wear, then more urban riding to try and find the bike tunnel under the Tyne.  The satellites didn't let us down, and we were soon under the river and on the final stretch to Gosforth.

The Tyne bike tunnel

 We finished about 10 hours after setting off, but with a riding time of under 8 hours and an average speed of not far short of 17mph - not bad for a bloke with one foot!  We raised about £3300 for charity, and had a cracking day out in the process.  I was very pleased that it really didn't feel too tough at all, and my toe wasn't too much trouble.

Now, however, I need to get it healed and get some bloody running done!