Cumulative 512 miles. Bum ratings : Miles 2, Paul 2 (we hardly got going today).
Today we entered the social wasteland of Britain, the economic Bermuda triangle around Mansfield, Kirby in Ashfield and Shirebrook. What a dump ! Row upon row of boarded up and unused houses and small kids (the mothers) pushing prams with armies of even smaller kids inside. Even the shops were either boarded up because it was too dangerous to show what goods were inside or they were boarded up because they were derelict.
It was like going on a forced anthropological tour of some strange primitive territory (we call it Middle England but it is more like Middle Earth) infected with primaeval tribes of creature which stand on two legs but are not as we know them - Mansfield seemed to be full to the brink of missing links !
This neatly brings us on to the other main event of the day - technological failure. Quite ironic after Paul's treatise on Day 6 blog claiming that everything thing I touch is not magic.
First off one mile outside Paul's home in Nottingham entering the badlands of Long Eaton, he says "peddle fast" because if we stop they will get us ! Following order I put my foot down and the peddle falls off. We make a quick 3 mile dash to three bike shops before we can get all new parts fitted. Three hours later off we go again now unable to go via the Peak District as we have lost the morning. Unfortuneatly we have to go via Mansfield - see above rant.
New parts £130 - see happy man in photo above.
(Just a small note from Paul: The parts that needed to be replaced were the parts that he had replaced 4 days earlier.....And more. So he has been through 2 sets of all brand new parts in just over 3 days)
Then just outside Sheffield climbing the Himalayan peaks that surround that city Paul's chain goes. Happily only takes 5 minutes to fix so that we can freewheel at 40 mph into Andy's house.
Entering Andy's we are serenaded with Ravel and Faure.
Only other event of the day was when we were passed by a lycra man coming from Derby. He stopped and chatted with us and sped off on his racer. We decided to give chase and caught him up but then really wished we hadn't been so competitive. He was wearing black lycra but with two very very important differences to normal people. Firstly he was wearing no underwear, not in itself a major issue but combined with the fact that his lycra was SEETHROUGH it became a serious crime. We were then chasing two pendulous pink slabs of jelly parked on bike. We vainly hoped that he had pink undies on, but no such luck as we spied the deep crack between the hilly jellies. Gives cyclists a bad name !
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