A bit of a mini-disaster today. While cycling along I noticed an unusual rattle coming from the rear of my bike. Stopping to inspect, the cause was quickly revealed - the support for the clip holding one of my panniers on had broken. The pannier was only partly supported at one end, and in danger of falling off completely. That would really have been bad, so to avoid this I packed as much as possible into the other pannier and Nick and I set off into the town we'd just reached to find a bungy that would help support it - or anything else that might help.
At first the search looked like it might be fruitless but a couple of young lads on bikes knew where a Halfords was and kindly offered to guide us there. I bought a bungy cord, and a backpack to help divide the load up, and some glue, in case that might help with a fix of kinds. The only other thing to do was to change the route for smoother surfaces that wouldn't bounce it around so much - if you've read the post on the planned route you'll know it takes in a lot of canal paths and cycle tracks, which, while scenic, tend to be a bit bumpy.
Nick decided to continue the original route (which he said turned into an almost unrideable 'mountain bike trail' near the end) while I took to the roads for a shorter, smoother and eventually, much faster arrival. Big thanks to Nick for coming back to see what happened when I stopped and staying with me while we worked out a solution - of sorts.
The stats:
Distance cycled today: 73.6 miles
Ascent: 2,250'
Distance from Lands End: 440.8 miles
Today's trivia quiz: What do Kellogs and Jodrell Bank have in common? A. They are both based in the Manchester area, and both of them lay along our planned route (although only Nick passed both of them by sticking to the original route).
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