Day 10: Miles pass by unforgotten

Fosdyke to Molehill Green ( 88 Miles)

In the States, I more often than not, had a few possibly destinations for the day and would decide around lunch time which was the most plausible. Today was to be my first day such as this of the trip so far. Despite the absence of rain to lull me to sleep, I had again gotten a good night’s rest in the tent and woke ready for another day on the road. It was nice putting away a completely dry tent and the forecast was good for the whole day, in preparation for the heavens to open tomorrow.

The morning miles passed by nicely, although a couple of dodgy bike paths had left me ready for an early lunch. I stopped at a petrol station to grab a quick sandwich as I was unsure where the next suitable place would be. The feed kept me going nicely and the next miles passed by without incident, on a mixture of small country roads and decent bike paths.

Morning had become afternoon and the belly began to rumble once more. I was getting close to Cambridge and decided this would be a good place to aim for to get some more food. I was about 10 miles out of Cambridge when I passed a nice looking pub that was advertising their Sunday roast. I immediately decided to abandon the Cambridge plan and headed inside. I tried to order a main course but the waiter explained that it was a set menu and I needed to order all three courses, “no worries”, I replied and duly did so. The meal was huge! The main course alone probably could’ve fed two people and I left with my stomach filled to bursting.

As I was approaching Cambridge, my maps said to continue onto Guided Busway. I was a little unsure what this meant, but it turned out that leading into Cambridge, they had created a road system where buses simply slot into the road and travel along, in a very similar way to how a train would operate. Alongside the busway was an excellent bike path that lasted around 10 miles, straight into the middle of the city. The bike path then took a break as you travel through the city, replaced instead with cycle lanes. I’m not usually a fan of city cycling, not being a particularly confident cyclist, my motto is “less cars the better”. However, cycling through Cambridge proved to be great fun, a combination of busy streets but at the same time feeling completely safe. The route then turned back into the Busway cycle path and before I knew it, I was out of Cambridge. The next piece of cycle path had a strip of colour down the middle, the next 10 miles or so became a case of follow the yellow (and blue and green and red) brick road.

With the excellent conditions today and horrendous weather expected for tomorrow, I decided, at lunch, to aim for a campsite right next to Stansted Airport. This would mean almost 90 miles of cycling today but would reduce tomorrows target to down towards 50 miles. The last 15-20 of the day were pretty sluggish, the wind had picked up and for the first time in a few days, there were some hills. Most worryingly though, my back tyre seemed to be a little flat. I hadn’t checked or pumped up the tyres since I started the trip, so it can be expected that they might have gone down a little bit. My front tyre seemed much firmer than the back one, but again this wasn’t too surprising as the back tyre is holding all the weight. I decided to pump up the tyre and carry on. After a few more miles, the tyre had definitely lost a bit of pressure, my first puncture of the trip was confirmed.

The tyre was losing pressure so slowly and I only had about 12 miles to go, so I decided to simply keep pumping it up every few miles, instead of attempting to change the tyre on the side of a small country road. This technique worked, although it did add a considerable amount of time onto an already long day, and I eventually pulled into my destination after nearly 90 miles of cycling. The campsite I was staying at was a make shift one at best. It turned out it was basically a pub where the owner let people camp in the garden behind. It was simple, but it was perfect.

I set up camp and set about fixing the tyre. Sure enough, after a bit of searching, I found the puncture. It was the tiniest puncture, made even more difficult to find due to roar of airplanes taking off at the adjacent airport. Worryingly I couldn’t find the cause of the puncture, but after a lot of searching, I gave up and put in a new tube. I will check again in the morning to make sure this has worked.

I then headed back into the pub only to be told that they weren’t serving food that evening and it was unlikely that anywhere in the close proximity was serving either. I was still pretty full from the late lunch, so I just got a few bags of crisps and headed back to the tent. Back in the tent, the rain started to fall, I think it might be a while before it stops, but today had been a successful day, leaving me around 100 miles to Dover!