Day 3 had been a short ride in terms of distance (54 miles) and today was a long one at 80+ miles. When booking the accommodation I had the choice of two Travelodge hotels and my thoughts were that I had booked the wrong one, the second one being 10 miles on from where we stopped. As we rode out with an 8AM start behind us, we talked about this, but such were the hills on the first ten miles we were all of the view that we would all have struggled to do the extra mileage.
Again we were following minor roads to Crediton on the CTC route. As we approached Crediton I became aware that my back wheel was not running true and Andy confirmed that he had noticed it was running badly. It was decided to go the next few miles to Crediton, stop for a break and fix it then. On arriving at Crediton we went into a small park to look at what needed to be done. Instead of finding spokes needing adjustment we found that the rim had gone in about 4 places with spokes well and truly pulled out of the wheel. Clearly the wheel was beyond repair. Locals told us that there was a bike shop at the bottom of the town and it turned out to be a good one. The Bike Shed at Crediton deserves special mention here as, from the moment we walked in, their focus was on getting us back on the road. And they did so within the hour. They were unable to find a suitable wheel in stock so took one from a Galaxy to get us moving again.
The delay did mean that we were well behind schedule, having done only 22 miles by noon. We decided to have lunch before starting again and then resumed through Cullompton, Taunton and across the Somerset Levels to street, again almost entirely by minor roads.
We had our first falling off incident in Cullompton when Richard fell off having locked his foot into the cleat and then forgetting to set off! Andrew was able to produce a chemist shop and patch him up.
The only other incidents en route were that I managed to buy some shoes to replace those that fell apart on day 1, and Andrew found a very large Dragonfly attached to his bar bag just before we got to Street.
The flat ride across the Somerset Levels was very welcome after all the hills, but just to prevent any complacency creeping in, there was a little cracker of a hill to get to the YHA just to finish off an 82 mile day.
We had intended to buy food to cook, but we arrived at 19:45 and decided that the pub was a better prospect, so we had a taxi into Street and it was into Weatherspoons for a good refuel.
Again we were following minor roads to Crediton on the CTC route. As we approached Crediton I became aware that my back wheel was not running true and Andy confirmed that he had noticed it was running badly. It was decided to go the next few miles to Crediton, stop for a break and fix it then. On arriving at Crediton we went into a small park to look at what needed to be done. Instead of finding spokes needing adjustment we found that the rim had gone in about 4 places with spokes well and truly pulled out of the wheel. Clearly the wheel was beyond repair. Locals told us that there was a bike shop at the bottom of the town and it turned out to be a good one. The Bike Shed at Crediton deserves special mention here as, from the moment we walked in, their focus was on getting us back on the road. And they did so within the hour. They were unable to find a suitable wheel in stock so took one from a Galaxy to get us moving again.
The delay did mean that we were well behind schedule, having done only 22 miles by noon. We decided to have lunch before starting again and then resumed through Cullompton, Taunton and across the Somerset Levels to street, again almost entirely by minor roads.
We had our first falling off incident in Cullompton when Richard fell off having locked his foot into the cleat and then forgetting to set off! Andrew was able to produce a chemist shop and patch him up.
The only other incidents en route were that I managed to buy some shoes to replace those that fell apart on day 1, and Andrew found a very large Dragonfly attached to his bar bag just before we got to Street.
The flat ride across the Somerset Levels was very welcome after all the hills, but just to prevent any complacency creeping in, there was a little cracker of a hill to get to the YHA just to finish off an 82 mile day.
We had intended to buy food to cook, but we arrived at 19:45 and decided that the pub was a better prospect, so we had a taxi into Street and it was into Weatherspoons for a good refuel.
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