Barnet to Broadstairs - day 2

 

Day 2, Tuesday, turned out to be a longer and more eventful day than planned.

It dawned fine, it was an apply the sun cream day. A lovely fresh cooked breakfast was consumed. I had the vegan full English as I don't eat meat but I really should have said to hold the 'bacon' as it is an abomination, like a strip of funny shaped and funny coloured shoe leather. We were away at exactly 9am, plenty of time to get to Broadstairs in order to have dinner, a chat and a beer before the big England match at 8pm, or so we thought.

I can see now that we went wrong straightaway and somehow managed to get up to route 1 instead of following route 177, thus doing 3 sides of a square. A great start.

Our mileage should have been 59 so we were the architects of our own misfortune.

Once through Rochester and Strood, which had been our original idea for the overnight stay but I didn't think much of the hotel and restaurant options hence the Inn on the Lake, we did crack on. We reached Sittingbourne and found a cafe with outdoor tables for lunch. Business had clearly been tough as we were very well waited on. I had a toastie, a muffin and a coffee whereas Steve said he only wanted coffee and cake. My suggestion that he needed to eat more didn't get taken on board although a second slice of carrot cake did (I like it without the sweet icing but horses for courses, a blueberry muffin for me). We cycled on. We went through lovely Faversham although on our own route not the officially posted one. We didn't stop to take any photos as we had too many miles to do.

At some point which I can't remember the official route took us through farmland. We were treated to the farmer rounding up a field of sheep and moving them, they knew the way, except for the straggler who must have got our sense of direction as a wrong turn was taken, I called out to the farmer to let him know and he sent one of the dogs to get the escaping sheep back to the fold.

We reached the outskirts of Whitstable. One of the problems with adding cycle routes onto pavements after the event, rather than when planning the road, is that you keep getting switched from one side of the road to the other which makes you lose time and sometimes your sense of direction so you have to keep checking.

Exiting a roundabout on the pavement I was looking down at my phone and the route to be sure we had taken the correct exit and Steve had decided to stop. I looked up too late to brake or completely steer round him although luckily Steve had the presence of mind to move his body to the side. I slammed into his bike and over we all went, me on top of my bike on top of his. We picked everything up and surveyed the damage with both of us saying it was our fault, it can only be the man at the back, me! We started pedalling again and found that his rear wheel now had a bit of a kink in it and was catching on the brake pad on each revolution. I also suggested his tyre pressure was low but he was happy with it. So on we went. 

On we pressed, wobbly wheel, low tyre pressure, tired rider and then, a puncture, just as we left Herne Bay.

Post puncture repair

Steve is mechanically excellent and so he got the spanners out as he didn't have quick release wheels. He had checked his spanner on the front wheel before leaving and would you believe it the rear nuts were a different size. There was a gardener sat in his van and I caught his eye and asked if he had any spanners. He was the least helpful person in Herne Bay, he said he didn't have any, his mowers clearly never needing any adjustment. I had seen a man just put his bins out and go indoors. Steve knocked at his door and an adjustable spanner was borrowed and we were offered three old flat spanners to keep

which we politely declined as they were imperial and we would need metric plus we had every other fastener catered for and they would add to the weight to carry. New tube inserted and off we go again.

From Herne Bay it should have been easy, but at Reculver the signs ran out. Steve was tired and so he explored up the hill a bit but didn't see any signs. Mrs Google told me go inland so we did and found the Viking Trail, which is fine as it does go to Broadstairs but the inland route is more hilly and Steve was heading into an unknown distance. I did a 77 miler during LEJOG so expected I could do it again. (Just ride all the way up the slope to the castle and then you will see the sea wall to ride along).

Then we ran short of water and had to stop and buy some, this can't have helped with either our efficiency or our brains as dehydration just does you in and you don't even realise.

We pressed on as best we could with every slope seeming steeper than ever. We had climbed twice as many metres as on the previous day and then the climb up Tothill St, headed towards Manston Airport, was just one climb too many. Steve had hit the wall, bonked, blown up, run out of gas, however you describe it he wasn't fit to continue. I offered him an apple juice carton and a Stoats bar (no stoats were harmed in the making of these lovely cereal & fruit bars which I only discovered aged 63 in Edinburgh on my way back from John O'Groats and I can buy in my local Waitrose) both were refused as he didn't want to spoil the dinner our friend had cooked (luckily risotto can be done at short notice and I had turned on location tracker so our progress, or lack of it, could be followed). Steve said he was a bit dizzy and he couldn't even manage to find his phone to 'phone a friend'. I phoned our friends and Ric jumped into the car to come and fetch Steve and his bike. Feeling a bit bad but knowing Steve would be ok after some food and drink and a rest, I got back on the bike and pedalled on, 6.5 miles to go and 40 minutes to do them in.

The bus stop I left Steve in didn't even have a bench!

I was actually a bit tired myself, being 65 miles into the route, but found the energy to tap out the remaining 6.5 miles round the top of the airport and through the fairly quiet roads of Broadstairs. I spotted the familiar registration of Ric's car when he was on the out trip so I knew he was on the right route and I turned into the destination street and was caught by the broom wagon with Steve hanging out the window to make some pithy comment (that's good, he's ok then!) as we pulled onto the drive together.

So there we were, 6m and 15s to kickoff. Safe, beer in hand, sat on the sofa with a mushroom risotto and the football starting (not a great football fan but our friends are so it is all part of the fun of the visit) all was right with the world.

Wednesday was planned as a rest day so no need to think about the journey back yet, the world would seem better after a good sleep.

If we had that day again we would probably have packed more water at the start (it was easy to buy more en route though) as we both had panniers, spent a bit longer planning the route and in my case probably bought a proper printed route map, I would have pushed Steve harder to eat more as I knew from Lejog you can eat two full meals and two snacks a day and still lose weight, pumped Steve's tyres up to make him try them that way and perhaps stayed in Gillingham as it was more like the mid-point, but the day was the day it was, we didn't break ourselves, only bent the bikes a bit (mine also as I realised the next day) and Steve felt he had let himself down, but he hadn't, he had battled on until he simply couldn't go another inch.

The next day, the local bike shop expressed their admiration for Steve having cycled for 30 miles on a kinked wheel with a flat tyre and wondered how the heck he had even got that far. They mentioned that the front wheel should have a skewer in it and the retaining nuts should have been on the inside of the forks, not the outside. They straightened the wheel and supplied a new spare inner tube, all for £21, and pumped both tyres up to 60 psi. I was banned from mentioning tyre pressures on the way home which of course I did all the way!

What a day. As Steve himself said, without an incident or two it isn't an adventure at all.

Derek