Wednesday 1 April 2009

Tuesday 19th August – JOGLE Day 9: Newton le Willows to Chatford. 65.5 miles travelled.




Where Our Narrator Will Finally Understands What You Have To Do To Carry On, And His Partner In Crime Ray Teaches Him A Valuable Lesson.

If Monday came with ferocity, Tuesday morning was a grey damp handshake best soon forgotten. We rolled out of bed and I was slightly surprised that I still hadn’t gotten used to the stale smell in the room, which had been topped up by the heady musk of drying cycle attire.
We headed down to breakfast at about 7:30am and waited around for the manager to arrive, who did so in a flurry of damp waterproofs and apologies for being late. As the only people there for breakfast, we seated ourselves in the breakfast room and Ray ordered a cooked breakfast while I opted for cereal and some bacon. Cornflakes aren’t my favourite by any stretch, but when they are the only choice you take what you can.

The toast was cold and like cardboard, the cooked breakfast was cold and flaccid (the only term that really applies people!!) and we headed back upstairs without finishing our brown hot water (it could have been tea, it could have been coffee, you just couldn’t tell!!)

After the now routine period spent checking the TV and trying to pretend it wasn’t going to happen, we got dressed, packed our gear, and went to retrieve the steeds who were delighted to be set free. The Manly Steed was still incensed about the rudeness of the day before, and had spent the night coming up with dark and devious plans involving a bicycle pump, a water bottle, and some oil in case it should happen again. I was sure it wouldn’t but heaven help the unfortunate who tried it today.

We set off ‘waterproofed up’ into a light rain, turning left out of the Pied Bull’s car park having exchanged a few words with a cheery chap who thought we were crazy. Given the weather I was inclined to agree, and we pedalled into Warrington with The Manly Steed eying any passing VW Polo’s suspiciously. The light rain turned into a downpour, and we cycled through it following the A49 ever southwards.

Warrington is much like many of the other towns we had passed – it wasn’t particularly memorable as there were the usual large megastores on the outskirts and newsagents as we got further in, but the one thing it did have was a steel bridge which caught our attention. It was over a canal and came seemingly out of nowhere as the rain bucketed down on us.

Once out of Warrington, we headed ever southwards on the A49 passing under the M56 as we went, and after that we were into much more rural countryside. The A49 is a lovely road to cycle on as it switches between dual carriageways and standard A roads, and the surface is akin to silk in comparison to some of the horrors that we had faced to get to that point. We headed towards Whitchurch passing Runcorn and Chester on our right and Weaverham, and pretty soon reached Tarporley where the road turned into the A51. I got over-excited at a signpost to Tiverton, thinking in some pain-induced state of befuddlement that we were nearing Devon, but it turned out to be a vicious red-herring.

As we pedalled, my knee was getting more and more painful. There is something particularly horrific about hurting yourself and then carrying on doing it again and again – it’s a bit like cutting yourself with a knife, and then doing it again. And again. And again. With my knee, the pain was a gradual thing which got worse, but never quite bad enough to force me to fall off and be unable to carry on. It was always there, every time I pushed down with my right leg it hurt.
I have mentioned before the loneliness of long distance cycling, and how it is easy to get trapped in your head. Add to this a nagging injury, and I started to become panicked as we went along, and was swearing at myself as I looked at the milometer and saw that we were nearly at the 600 mile mark. I couldn’t finish it here, but I couldn’t see myself being able to carry on either, and tears started to roll down my face.

After another mile I pulled over and pretty much threw the Manly Steed down at the side of the road, swearing and wiping my eyes. The Manly Steed looked up at me reproachfully, but it understood.

Ray got off and I told him how bad the knee was.

“Mate,” I said. “I don’t know how much further I can go on this...”

Ray turned and went back to his pannier, whilst I swore again and stretched my hamstring out in a vain attempt to ease the ache behind my knee. “I just can’t see how I can carry on – it isn’t bad enough to stop right now, but what if it gets worse?” Everything piled up on top of me, and I could feel myself starting to lose it.

Ray came back with a drink and a packet in his hand. He could have said: “This is the time, my friend, where we have to dig deep and push through the pain. The time we have trained all those long months for, pedalled all those long miles for. This is the time where we step up, and with a passion as strong as the mountains we have crossed to reach this place, challenge everything we believe we can achieve, and refuse to lie down! This is the time where we are on the knife’s edge between failure and success, and it is up to you now to become the man you have always known you could be!! This is the time: now!! And we’re going finish this bitch if it’s the last thing we do, on our hands and knees if necessary, because WE WILL NOT GIVE UP!!”

In fact, Ray could have said many things. Instead, he held out the packet to me. “Popcorn?” he asked?

The tension broke, and I sat on the side of the road laughing and wiping the odd tear away as I (perhaps selfishly – but I don’t care!!) ate most of the toffee popcorn Ray had bought over a hundred miles back. After this, we got back on the bikes (me apologising to the Manly Steed as I did so) and carried on our way having decided to take breaks more frequently so that I could stretch.
Ray’s Lesson For Will: Don’t Take The Mickey Out Of Ray As You Will Usually Live To Regret It.

The A49 continued onwards until we reached Whitchurch and it turned briefly into the A41 as we bypassed the town. Neither Ray nor I had the energy to fight our way through the town centre, and we took advantage of a Little Chef on the side of the road to stop for lunch. It was raining once more, and we tethered the steeds out of the wind and the worst of the rain before heading inside to a warm seat with some much needed coffee.

There was a new menu being trialled (which Heston Blumenthall rubbished in a recent TV series – Heston has obviously never cycled from John O’Groats) and I ordered some pasta with warm bread while Ray had another cooked breakfast. We had done 38.5 miles and it was about 13:20, and we were both glad to be indoors. I called Mike and set him searching for a place for us to stay near Shrewsbury, and then dug into the steaming pasta which had just arrived.

Leaving behind the Little Chef we turned left back onto the A41 and headed onwards, rejoining with the A49 once more and following signs to Shrewsbury. We passed a garden centre on our left and I stopped to play with the large floppy eared dog who had come out to support us on our way, before carrying on and passing farmland on our left and right, terrain completely different from the previous day’s cycle. We stopped frequently, and I was concerned to note that I had very little strength in my right leg.

8 miles from Shrewsbury, Ray, in a display of superhuman endurance and terrier-like tenacity, took my pannier from me to lighten the load on the Manly Steed and thus enable me to get that bit further. We hit Shrewsbury at about 16:30 as the roads were starting to get heavy with traffic, and scooted around the outside on the dual carriageway, stopping in a large lay-by for more manly stretching. Mike called with a place to stay for the night in a place called Chatford House which was just past Shrewsbury, and with a final destination in mind we wearily remounted and pedalled onwards once more.

My old athletics coach Bob Skip (a top chap) used to say when we were training hard that you had to be “a certain kind of animal to want hurt yourself.” As we carried on I realised that this was true. I had wearily accepted that I was probably going to hurt more than I already did, and that the knee might get worse. I might not finish, but I was going to carry on and see how far I could get.

We turned right off the A49 onto some back roads before Stapleton and then turned up a single lane track that led us to the hamlet of Chatford where we found our way to our accommodation for the night. We were met by our host the lovely Christine and her two delightful daughters, and left the steeds for the night in a shed next to a bullock who was going to market in the coming days. The Manly Steed was no doubt muttering quietly to itself about this, but any port in a storm...

Chatford House is a wonderful B&B, and we took full advantage of the power shower before collapsing on our beds for 20 minutes. Christine invited us downstairs for coffee and homemade cake which was just what we needed, before offering to give us a lift into Shrewsbury to get some cash and a knee support for me.

This done, and £40.00 spent on a support (a great investment!), she then drove us to the Bridge Inn and left us there for dinner. We ate a lovely meal and had a couple of pints of local ale before Christine then came back and picked us up once more and deposited us back at the B&B whereupon the usual evening phone calls and texts commenced.

Christine is an angel. I think that she (and a couple of other people we met en-route) are going to heaven.

I collapsed in bed having had a draining day both emotionally and physically, and having watched part of Roadhouse (a bad film with Patrick Swayze) fell asleep missing my dear wife. Outside, the rain beat down in a steady patter, and I had no idea what the next day might bring, or even if I would be able to get through it.

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