A Covert Operation

Whilst the team set of from second lunch, Scott had waited for Mary to take him to the nearest bike repair shop.  As it turned out, Scott’s mechanical problems with the pedals were easily fixed and he did not in fact miss much of the first day’s ride, which was good, and our hope was that all problems with the new and untried bike were now over.  This was, as you will hear in later blogs, a false hope indeed.

As well as many short sharp hills during our route through Cornwall there were two particularly long steep ascents at the end of the day.  One was on the way into St Austell and the other on the way out of St Austell up to the Bugle Inn where we were booked in for the night. Now I know that LEJOG is not a race but, and this is a big but, in my mind, it is and the main contender to be seen off was Ollie. I overtook him on several climbs but on a couple of the nasty ascents he caught me up despite the fact that I had 250 watts of power available at the flick of a switch in my back wheel before I even started adding any wattage of my own.  Who was I trying to kid, I was never going to get the better of the Chiselled Whippet?  Well an old man can dream, can’t he? When I flicked the switch, the battery indicator was on red, meaning I had somewhere in the region of 25% battery left.  On the last climb of the day, with a little (considerable) help from my back-wheel friend I gradually over took all the other members of the team.  This gave me a considerable (ridiculous) amount of satisfaction.  However, my nemesis, Garrett Junior, hove into view; “bugger”, I thought.  Then for some, to my mind inexplicable reason, he pulled back.  Had the team car ordered him back?  This isn’t the Tour De France you prat!  The upshot of this strange move on his part was that, much to my surprise, not to mention the surprise of the back-up team, I rolled into the Bugle Inn car park first.  So, at least in my fantasy world, a stage win and the yellow jersey.  Well make the most of it Mick, it won’t be happening again.

Ok, back in the real world, the reason why Ollie pulled back on that final climb was to make sure the rest of the team were ok.  He may not have been ordered back by any imagined team boss but he certainly played the part of a dedicated domestique that first day whilst yours truly indulged in attempting to inflate his 70-year-old ego.  Good on you Ollie, I tip my cycling helmet to you and admit that from a moral perspective you are the better man.

When Adam rolled in, he announced that this first day’s ride was the longest he had ever done thus far in his cycling career.  Well my son (of whom I am really proud) there will be longer rides on this trip before we eventually roll into John O’ Groats

After everyone arrived, we sat in the pub garden and downed a pint of protein drink to revitalise our muscles.  I also needed to recharge that battery on my Ribble in preparation for the hills we would encounter on day two.  My thought was to ask the Publican if I could take the bike up to our room and plug it in there or, if he didn’t like that suggestion, ask where I could plug it in.  Julia had other ideas. Basically, what she had in mind was a covert operation whereby the bike would be smuggled upstairs without involving the Publican.  So, a surveillance operation, worthy of MI5 or the CIA was put in motion and when it was confirmed that the Publican was out of sight of the stairs which led to our bedroom, the bike was duly taken up, Julia on the front wheel and me on the rear.  Now I must confess that such naughtiness did give me a bit of an adrenaline rush.

The bike plugged in, we headed for the bar where we joined the rest of the team for a meal.  We then listened to a tolerably good Tribute Glam Rock band before heading to bed “perchance to dream”.

Steep Hills and Mechanicals

After a fairly good night’s sleep I awoke at around 6.30am I found the sun was shining; “long may it continue”, I thought to myself as I fuelled up with a hearty breakfast.  The previous two times we have ridden LEJOG it rained when we reached Lands End and we had to hang around until it stopped, not wishing to get soaked before we had even mounted our bikes.  This time it didn’t rain and as far as I was concerned it was an ideal day for cycling, a good start for the first day. There would be trials and tribulations ahead but at least it seemed that the weather was on our side.

Curiosity got the better of Ollie and he asked if he could have a go on my Ribble before we set of.  He sped round the carpark until I told him to stop wasting my battery power as I was probably going to need as much of it as possible with the tough Cornish hills which we would encounter during the first day’s ride.
Thus it proved to be the case, for there was a lot of tough climbing, particularly in the afternoon. I didn’t use the e-bike motor much in the first part of the day but as the ride progressed, I relied on it more and more.  Ollie, who I think was worried that I would beat him up the hills due to the gain facility on my bike, the potential of which he had experienced in the car park at Land’s End, seemed determined that this should not come to pass.  So, on one the steep climbs, the ascent up from King Henry’s Ferry, when I shot past everyone and headed up the incline he came after me.  I made the mistake of easing off towards the top of the climb and he saw his moment to attack and passed me reaching the top first.  “Bugger!”, I thought quietly to myself.  That aside, I must say that using the motor, when I felt it necessary, made the day’s ride much more enjoyable than on previous trips, as it enabled me to put in much more effort myself, effort that made me feel I was really getting somewhere.  The Ribble Company claimed that their gain bikes “enhance your ride, not dominate it” and in my experience that is completely true. Previously I had employed the “Sam Goddard method of hill climbing”, which involved getting in a very low gear and going as slowly as possible. This did indeed enable me to climb steep ascents very slowly but, with the gain bike, being able to shoot up them at speed had an enormously good psychological effect, even if the “chiselled Whippet” was still able to beat me on occasions. Best £3,000 Julia ever spent on me. It definitely ranks alongside my newest Martin guitar for pure pleasure per pound.

Scott, it transpired as the trip unfolded, was to be beset with many trials and tribulations.  The first two occurring on the first day.  Just after starting out from the Land’s End car park, somehow or other, his chain managed to wrap itself around itself in a kind of Gorgon’s Knot.  Fortunately, a couple of guys in a van came along and stopped to assist him.  They had a tool which released the chain enabling him to continue, at least for a bit.  At second lunch, we discovered that one of his pedals was seriously malfunctioning which meant that Mary had to take him off to a cycle repair shop whilst the rest of us pushed on without him.  He was somewhat philosophical about this and said that he had done the ride before, if it had been the first time, he would have been angrier.  I was quite angry on his behalf as he was riding a brand-new bike, a good make, and something like that should not have happened.  Of course, mechanical problems can beset even the most experienced rider and it was fortunate that we started the ride on a Saturday when the cycle repair shops were open.  He was able to get the pedal problem fixed and that enabled him to join us again for the last part of the day’s ride.  More about that in the next blog.