Final Preparations...

Sunday 25th July - We do a final ride to Bickleigh and back. I thought this would be fun as Bickleigh was the first place we'd cycled with the CTC all those months ago. Sadly it wasn't as fun as I'd hoped. I struggled with the bike again and didn't feel like we were able to get up any real speed. It was such a relief to arrive at Bickleigh Mill for a break. We were surrounded by people enjoying Sunday roasts which looked delicious, but I didn't think I manage that and then cycle back again, so we settled for paninis. The ride back again seemed better, but I was still very nervous about the 300 miles facing us in just a few days time.

With no more time left for cycling, we turned to our preparations for the trip. Packing and preparing the bikes. I was really glad we'd done the touring trip around Britanny as it meant the whole process of packing our panniers was a familiar and reassuring one. I was confident I was packing the right things as well as a few extras, as this time we wouldn't be having to cycle with our panniers once we got to London.

Setting out to try the panniers on my bike on Monday in preparation for our departure on Tuesday, we bumped into Kirby. He looked rather concerned at the size of our panniers and queried why we were taking food supplies if we were getting fed on the trip. I wasn't taking any chances though - so although I took a couple of things out of my bags before we left, the food stayed in!

Particularly squeaky brakes on Ant's bike had us both up late worrying about whether we could get the bike looked at before we left. We were up scrubbing the rims and trying to sand down the brake pads, but this didn't seem to make any difference We went to bed worrying about whether the bike would be fit in time.In the morning, 10 minutes towing in the brake pads cured the problem instantly! Ah well, at least we were ready to go...