After months of tireless(!) preparation, all of our donations are in and Danny has issued his final advice on those last minute preparations which mainly involved a mad dash across Manchester to buy all of the pieces of kit that we had meant to get months back. The assistant was visibly stunned that they had sold out completely of waterproof overshoes in mid-summer and there had been a run on chamois cream, about the application of which Danny had issued a detailed treatise. For the non-cyclists in the readership, this cream is basically a thick, creamy slime that is used in place of underwear to avoid chaffing and the build-up of unwelcome bacteria. Danny did fall short of researching application techniques for females and in a mode that was to emerge as a clear pattern, Beth was left to sort herself out.
Note that Zack remained consistent throughout in ignoring this advice alongside all other advice given to date. This left him in the less than ideal position of not having done any on-bike training at all, not having anything but a basic pair of shorts, not having borrowed a lighter bike, and not having bought a sensible saddle - only time will tell....
Logistics has never proven to be a strong point of the team and true to form we ended up travelling down to our start point in Bexleyheath in two Luton vans, a train and a car. This was to transport 8 of us with bikes and bags. It transpired later in the trip that the company organising the tour managed to convey the entire belongings of 65 cyclists with what turned out to be slightly less capacity. Let's just say there was plenty of breathing space in the back.
Eventually we all converged on our Bexleyheath base which is when things started to go downhill. Everything was unloaded except Ian's bike which was locked to the side of the van. "Right pass the key" said Zack. "I gave it to you in Manchester" said Ian. The rest of the team could see exactly where this was going and retreated to the bar as the discussion became increasingly more tense and heated.....and as the mother of all thunder storms arrived. It was 9pm - the van was being collected at 10. The thunder storm set in for the night.
Despite the purpose of the lock being only to stop the bike from moving around, Ian had placed the lock perfectly making extracting the bike by dismantling wheels, forks, gears, chains or seats impossible. There was only one thing for it.....find help in the form of the tour mechanic. It turned out all he had was the smallest pair of wire cutters ever produced. Danny (mechanic extraordinaire) looked on with disdain and amazement at the lack of any kind of oxy-acetylene cutting equipment or diamond-edged saw. With 5 minutes to spare the lock was finally off, sliced strand-by-strand. The location of the key was never established but we all suspect the one of the lads found it and surreptitiously dumped it en-route.
Beth and a relieved looking Zack with the destroyed lock
After checking in to the hotel we discover that our fellow travellers all look far more professional than we had imagined they would be....and Rod and Mark are gutted that they have far from the most expensive bikes on the block. Never mind boys, just a great reason to go out and upgrade when we get back.
A a very restrained meal and a couple of beers (shandy in Danny and Rod's case - which they claimed was performance enhancing) and we retired to bed to watch the lighting strikes and listen to the claps of thunder through the background of torrential rain. As Danny the team prophet put it, "That fifteen quid on overshoes will be the best money you ever spent".
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