I would not describe myself as a “sun worshipper” but I am one of those people who seems to get an instant suntan and is not often troubled by sun burn. In fact, I seem to get something of a tan if I go out in a strong wind: strange! I am however sensible, particularly when cycling, and smother myself in sun screen on days when the bright rays of the sun seem to hit the tarmac and come relentlessly back at you. For the most part, thus far on our journey north, the weather had been kind to those of us who can take the sun. This was not true for Scott, who found the very hot days impossible. He was unable to drink enough water to keep himself hydrated and if he applied copious amount of factor 50, the upshot was it melted off his face and ran into his eyes all but blinding him. Thus, it was today he sat out the last section of the day’s ride which was a pity, as it was the most picturesque, taking the intrepid group through the Forest of Boland.
However, before we got onto that part of the day’s ride and whilst the sun had temporarily hidden itself behind some high clouds, we had some northern urban cycling to negotiate. I had some horrendous memories from previous trips of the very busy route out of Runcorn. One of the main roads, as I recalled, was a feeder road for a motorway and trying to ride across the very speedy oncoming traffic was, for me, a nightmare. I confessed my fears to the others and Scott came up with an ingenious scheme for getting the old boy safely across the flood of impatient motorists, whose aggressive hooting had reduced me to a nervous wreck last time I came this way. He had noticed that I was hesitant when cycling onto roundabouts and thus missed opportunities to get round quickly. So, he suggested that the rest of the team surrounded me and that I concentrated, not on the traffic, but on the back wheel of the rider directly in front of me. On the command “go”, we set off. This worked brilliantly on several roundabouts. However, the initial roundabout which had concerned me most, had changed out of all recognition when we tackled it. Helpfully, traffic lights had been installed and so getting round it was actually a piece of cake. That said, I had to admire and be extremely thankful to Scott for his accurate reading of my problem and for coming up with a very practical solution. So, thanks Scott.
We cycled through a series of northern towns, Warrington, Bolton, Blackburn being the chief among them. Two things I noticed about these towns. Firstly, the sun had come out from behind its cloudy hiding place by the time we got to Warrington and the towns did not look as grim as I remembered them from previous trips. Secondly, on the first LEJOG, I had noticed the proliferation of “Food Banks” in these conurbations and thought of them as part of the North/South divide. This time round I had to revise my thoughts, as the “Food Bank” at my home church of St Matthew’s, Redhill, is being increasingly used as the months of austerity rolled, apparently endlessly, on.
Riding through the aforementioned towns was, for the most part, easy and flat. In between the urban cycling there was some stunning scenery accompanied by some challenging climbing. Ollie, who had been our chief navigator, left us at Bolton where he caught a train to London in order to attend the wedding of a great friend of his. Lizzie took over the task of navigator and did a great job. We stopped to fuel up at Bob’s Smithy Inn. I volunteered to go in and buy a drink to legitimise our use of the carpark for the lunch stop. Well, someone had to take one for the team and as its eldest member I felt I had to lead by example. I dared not admit this supreme self-sacrifice at the time however for fear of being told that I was full of something brown and rather smelly!
Ezekiel's Wheels 