Day 5 Irvine 2 Carlisle
WET and GRIM
Day of 2 halves.
Very wet start leaving my sister's, with the grim prospect that it was set for the day. One of Colin's favourite sayings of the trip is "when I'm in charge of the weather, it will only rain between 3-5 in the morning!" We got about 200 yards down the main road when 2 lorries tsunami’d us............ I politely asked Colin if he could submit his application for the weather job verbally now please! About 9 miles into the ride we were already soaked and it felt like we'd been cycling 90 miles already. No pictures on route as we couldn't really see anything. The wind was biting and the rain lacerating our faces, which now felt heavily ex foliated. We ground out 36 miles and then just had to stop to warm up and my left knee now felt like it was being jabbed with a hot knife every pedal stroke! Out with the painkillers. I was.effectively now pedalling one legged not really being able to put any effort through the left knee at all.
After a few miles of restart, it would appear Colin's application had been accepted and we got some broken sunshine at last along with a slight change of direction in the wind, now being a bit more in our favour. The roads were quiet B roads which was great but clearly B up here stands for broken as they were rough. Just when you thought things were going your way, a bend, a steep climb and before I knew what I was saying I shouted out loud "OH COCK" confirming I'm more James May than Richard Hammond. At the top I needed to stop. The knee was really quite a problem now. I had some duck tape with me taped around the saddle stem of the bike in case we needed it. I hadn't thought I'd have to be taping my knee up with it! Also adjusted saddle height and more painkillers. Then, 20 more painful miles later Gretna, shortly followed by the last house in Scotland and a sight for sore...knees.....Welcome to England. A few miles later of course more rain but by now we were only a mile from the Premier Inn, Carlisle. Tomorrow is another 100 miles, it was 102 today. Knee on ice, painkillers on board. Let's see how we go in the morning. Colin's mum kindly making enquiries at Blackburn hospital and think I may need to pop in when we arrive there late tomorrow. Fingers crossed I don't need to.
Strava route
· Day 5
