COP26 - Day 2 - Oxford to Coventry

 

An almost straight line from Oxford to Coventry. A 'short' day, only 68 miles, but with a fair bit of climbing which is probably why I only managed 9.6 mph although I don't recall feeling under time pressure or being short of energy.

 

The Barnet posse had a 6th rider for days 2 & 3 as no-one had to ride it all (I was taking a train on day 5, my unofficial rest day, but more of that later). One of the greatest joys of this ride is that we were all in it together and although some riders knew each other beforehand we had only met once as a group on the Friday evening before we left. There was a fabulous camaraderie and everyone looked out for everyone else, not just within the posse, but across the whole tour. Blenheim Palace in the background, it was too early to stop for tea, we had only just left Oxford.

Such beauty, this photo taken by one of the official photographers.

Our finish was here. A moment of reflection for someone.

This was at the start, bag drop, which made cycling easier. I kept one pannier which contained waterproofs, two spare pairs of gloves (still in fingerless in October) and a spare tyre (which folds up small). Spare inner tubes live in the frame bag.

Yes, Blenheim again.

Whilst the ride was mostly on roads for speed, we did find some lovely tracks. We all had the same gpx (sat nav) files but different programmes (Garmin, Wahoo etc) had different ideas about routes with some being more off road than others. Kristien and I had to decide who was run leader each day as at the extreme she wanted to go left at a junction and me to the right.

A small windmill but still pretty.

Lunch, always a welcome sight. The offering from this trailer was first class and hot chocolate with marshmallows went down a treat,

Not such a welcome sight, a puncture on the beast. We struggled with removing the tyre. On this e-bike you don't remove the wheel, we opted to fix the puncture. We were slowly getting there but had put out an SOS to the emergency helpline and Shalyn & Anna Hughes* came from the finish 10 miles away to get us there sooner. we needed tweezers to get the thorn out and Craig on the cargo bike was carrying some medical ones, amazingly useful.

If we hadn't been able to fix the puncture this was the spare inner which Kristien was carrying which you can fit without removing the wheel, nifty eh?

Thus day 2 came to an end. All good so far.

Anna Hughes was the travelling mechanic. We had met once previously when she delivered my copy of Eat, Sleep, Cycle which you can buy, or other books, from her here. I managed to not notice her at all on day 1, it was busy.