Day 9 - Penrith to Preston - 11th June

The day after the day before

Follow where we have been by Gavs Garmin - Click on this link - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/36496601

The first trial of the evening was the discovery by Laonie and Danny that as they had carefully put their small bags uder the stairs at Jubillee house, as it appeared to be a pile of our general bags, that it was acutally just Grahame, Nick and Petes bags, who a few minutes later promptly piled them all in the car to drive home with. Luckily - nothing important in them except Laonies life, make up and various essentials and everything of Dannys that he didnt know he had until he wanted it! In the end this was deposited at Preston station when the theft was discovered, so they have just had to go without for 24 hours :)

A big thank you to both the staff and the current guests at Jubillee house for making us some welcome, for the food and for generally having us. As a way of saying thank you, they held back the start of the quiz into which we entered two teams of four, and we are proud to say we came 1st & 2nd!!! (Well when you come from Oxford - there are expectations!)

Owen was still working out along with Gav an Phil and others until late out the back of the gym carrying out a little maintenance, however most people took around 10 15 minutes to get theirs up to speed. Not to be out done Toby, asked Owen to have a little look at his gears, and 2 1/2 hours later, it was decided the only thing that was going to sort out Toby's problem was a visit to the bike shop in the morning to lavish a good £100 pound or more on a new shifter, cable etc. It is likely that Toby will be riding the same bike when he finishes, but made up entirely of new parts................

A fairly quiet night ensued, as most got their heads down fairly promptly (after the worlds longest raffle, which again we were victorious with, and came away with a lot things we have no idea what they are).....

Back to the early starts (actually we never got away from them - funny that we are up earlier on the rest day than a ride day....)

Today was our first test of our new driving team of Andy & Will, so everyone very helpfully spent a bit of time ensuring they were suitable confused before we left them.

9 o'clock after a group photo shoot, out the front of Jubilee house, saw 12 riders heading for Shap summit, and 3 heading straight for the bike shop, 1 mile 1/2 in the opposite direction. A very enjoyable hour for Toby as his gear was stripped on the pavement in the middle of Penrith using various tools from the bike shop, with a few atmospheric 'ooh's and um's' from Owen as he got it all working again.

The weather has been very nice today, a little cool and damp as we went over Shap, and
Everyone else powered on over Shap summit (which turned out to be ok really) and eventually over an hour to hour and a half, we all passed through the lunch stop at Bolton le-sands Fire Station.

Andy Ford, ever eagle eyed for a fire station, spotted it on the main A6 and pulled in (in the great big furniture village van) and overpowered the watch manager to convince him to let him set up cafe in the drill yard. We are all sure he had no idea what he was letting himself in for.......

Around about 12 o'clock we were out of Cumbria and in to lancashire......

After the bike shop stragglers went through, lunch was quickly packed up, and sent on its way to Preston in the van to meet up with Danny and Laonie's bags.....

Will proceeded to manage to break the van (well he was driving so it must have been his fault), and after having boiled enough water to provide half of Lancashire, the rear compartment battery finally ran flat (it has done 6 days worth) but luckily the only problem this caused was the radio to turn off, and now it needs the radio code.......... Could be a long music less drive for the next couple of days :)

The first boy racers (Dino, Danny, Dino and Andy) were all in the reclining chairs at Preston station by 2.30 (good effort guys), whilst the last rolled around 4.30, having partaken of a scenic stopoff in Lancaster to enjoy the delights of Pennys Cafe.

Bob thought that he wanted more, so had a little 15 mile round trip on the bike to meet the last few in - mad man.......

A fantastic dinner by Princess and the gang at 5.30 of curried chicken, veg, meatballs, pasta, salad, followed by a vat of fruit salad.

Finally it would not be right to end this blog without mentioning the fact that it is Owens Birthday, and so a cake was duly provided, for which he will have to cough up for later....

Tonight see's us staying at Preston Fire Station, thanks to the two watches for their hospitality so far.

If anyone is worried about our physical state we are all pleased to report that the rest day seemed to work, and although we all have one way or the other we all still seem to be alive. Although Toby still seems to be consistently ill and consuing enough medication to supply the entire northwest - but he is manning up!