Today started much better than yesterday and I was on the road by 6am. And by 10 I was having breakfast in Whitchurch which is a beautiful little town which reminds me a lot of home.
The local area was rolling hills and surprisingly a lot of horses. Even passing a group of jockeys racing around a field in training. And many on the roads out walking. The fields were mostly yellow, although a few were turning red with the poppy fields which are so popular around here, as well as many potato fields bit those are less a spectacle.
Getting to Telford want bad, and before going in I saw a roadside cafe and stopped for lunch. I got chatting to one local guy who guessed I was doing the end to end and we discussed how his doctor kept telling him to lose weight or he might become diabetic. It made me chuckle though when he learned I was one “but there’s no meat on you”. So I went through the usual expansions about the different kinds and went into the JDRF. The guy nicely donated £5. Thanks!
Getting to Telford I had I simple plan, stick to one road and zap through it. That got scuppered so I once again got into knots trying to escape, taking far longer than expected.
I kept on going and the weather remained undecided. As soon as I changed into wet weather kit, the sun would come out and I would bake, and add soon as I took of my jacket, down the rain would come. In the end I just gave up and went on in my dry weather kit. It probably needed a good wash anyhow.
Time was skipping on so time to find somewhere to stay. Best I could find in a pretty decent direction was in
Upton Warren which I had no idea where to get to. I switched to using Google Navigation for this and talk about asking the country paths it took me. I was sure it was wrong, but looking at the map it only seems to of goofed up a couple of times so I’ll forgive it. Must admit it was nice to ride along a canal again, but quite different to the Lancaster or Glasgow canals as this had on part cut out of sandstone.
Pausing to rummage through my bags for more food when the wind caught LM and thud, not a good sound. Bent the lefthand gear /brake horn in, not bad enough to make it to uncomfortable or stop it working but annoying. I rummaged around again for my tools but remembered I didn’t bring the Allen key set as I had a multi tool. And the snag here being it’s too short reach and chunky to fit the small space to adjust the horn back. Annoying but am sure a garage or bike shop while passing will have some keys to buy.
Continuing Google Navigates rather odd around the houses route I suddenly thought it had dumped me on millionaires row. Every house was huge, well the ones you could see. Every passing car was a big car and everyone had personalised plates. No idea who lived here but was a few cars with UTD plates. Trying to think which football team is a United locally, Wolves isn’t is it? Lovely places of you have the money.
Power was again becoming a problem but just made it to the hotel in time. Had a lovely bangers and mash inside a giant Yorkshire pudding. Obviously I miss judged the cards, or I was spiking from what was still in my system from earlier while riding but I shot high and was up a few times trying to get it down to no avail. In the end changed infusion set as it might of got clipped out the insulin might of got a bit cooked being next to me all day.