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Last updated: 7 Aug 2003
The weather forecast for the day was pretty bad but, as it turned out, very wrong to start off with. In the first place we had a tailwind, thanks be to God, which actually lasted all day, and we started off in brightening sunshine. 'B' roads from the off were reasonable, then the A6 was not too crowded, though back to single file riding again.
Main feature of the early part of the day was Shap, which we climbed from the easy side. But descent to Kendal was something else. Being a soft southerner, I thought the downhill bit was over as I saw the road rise sharply in front of me, disappearing round a right hand turn which I took to be the next bit of the next climb. So I kept it in the 12 as far as possible until I blew, then all the way down to the 39x23 then 25 to crawl up. If only I'd known the bulk of the hill was still in front maybe the blowup would not have happened. Anyway I happily whizzed down the rest of the way towards Kendal.
The Butty Bar in Kendal is really very good. A bacon-and-egg butty plus two teas sitting by the side of the road in nice, warm sunshine. That's more like it!
The rest of the day took in Preston and Wigan down to Warrington. We were quite late again, without the excuse of a major detour and the dreadful conditions that applied on Day 3. I was beginning to reach the conclusion that the towns and cities were causing major delays, which idea has remained with me since the run ended.