The Joys of Travel

The Art of Bike Wrestling:

A 5:00am alarm call confirmed that the day had finally arrived. I intentionally left little time to hang around so it was a slightly rushed breakfast, a quick goodbye and off into the morning chill. My first few metres cycling away from the drive was reminiscent of Coco the Clown as I was reminded just how unstable the bike is when fully loaded.

This was the third time in recent months that I'd done the ride in to Manchester and it always takes longer than expected? Fearing a puncture, which could have very expensive knock-on effects, I allowed plenty of time so had time to relax with a coffee at Piccadilly before the stress of getting 'The Tank' on board. The train was quiet,, no Wembley bound football supporters as feared. It was just as well as it took me 20 minutes to get my bike installed in one of the allocated spaces.

Manchester city centre at 7:00am
on a bank holiday Saturday.

The bike had to be mounted vertically which meant removing the front panniers and the slot was too narrow for my handlebars. A titanic struggle involving the loss of a small quantity of blood was required to complete the job. I then had 5 hours on the train to stress out about having to do it again.

I changed trains at Newton Abbott, the onward train to Plymouth was far from quiet! It was standing room only, there were a dozen people in front of me queueing to get on and one of them had a bike. All the bike slots on the train were already full. I self-consciously barged the Tank on to the train and completely blocked both the doorway and the corridor. Surprisingly everyone seemed good natured about the situation, I suspect it was a Bank holiday vibe and the situation would have been quite different on a work day. Needless to say I stood for the entire journey, continually shunting the Tank around to make way for people. I now view the train part of cycle-touring as something to be just tolerated, like the transit through Airports on other journeys.

Now I'm stuck in my bargain B & B in Plymouth unable to walk anywhere for food, the evening meal offered and booked seemingly not available at weekends?

My host has offered to let me order a take-away and eat in the dining so now it's a question of whether I dare have a curry the evening before a 22 hour sea crossing!

So, the day I'd least looked forward to is done and I can now embark on my Spanish oddysy.

I hope the Bay of Biscay isn't too lumpy tomorrow!