Grounds today - None

Castleford to South Witham

The longest mileage day! We left the Best Western just outside Milford heading south towards Margaret Thatcher’s birth place, Grantham (see, this site is not all uneducated niff naff!)

Once again the weather was glorious for a gentle 90 miles! The wind was slightly across and just behind which helped greatly.

Before we go any further, we must apologise for the late update of the site for yesterday. Unfortunately we couldn’t find an imbecile who hadn’t protected their wireless network (which is incidentally how we have been updating it so far!!!) Sir Bhab has been loitering in front of office buildings and residential areas looking for an unsecured wireless network - lo and behold, we managed to update in the late afternoon.

Daz was on the spare bike due to a bottom bracket failure of his trusty stead. Sir Bhab managed to purchase, fix and recommision the stead within 40 miles of the days journey (see photos).

In the mean time, our 4 intrepid hero’s carried on regardless at super high speed. A speed too high for Sir Bhab to keep up - when we finally met up in Carlton-On-Trent lunch was UNPREPARED! This unexpected and unacceptable event saw the “Great Gravy Spat of Carlton-On-Trent” between Bob and Brad. Toys were strewn across the lay-by as the pair fretted about who concocted the best onion gravy.

Bob’s use of the boiled potato water to thicken the gravy was a winner and probably the killer blow to Brad’s poor effort of browning the onions to the point where they stuck to the bottom of the pan - amateur!

After the energy stop we flew through Newark-On-Trent observing a Chinese Take-Away called “Wok This Way” which created great amusement, along with the carpet shop named “Walter Wall”.

We arrived at our accommodation well ahead of schedule - which was a good job - because it was the wrong one! After much self congratulating and mutual back patting we realised that we were at the wrong hotel and had another 3 miles to go! Bugger! At least that takes 3 miles off tomorrow’s journey into God’s Country, Luton!

When this part of our epic adventure is updated is anybody’s guess! Hopefully it will be just after we leave this wonderful pub called the White Lion where we have enjoyed super hospitality and an excellent steak meal - highly recommended!

Since we have had time to check the web site there has been an veritable plethora of postings on the message board. You cannot possibly under estimate the encouragement that it provides us and we thank every one of you (apart from Puke!)

Thanks again and keep reading!

Stats

Time in saddle - 5 hours 51 minutes

Miles - 90.4 miles

Average Speed - 15.3 mph!!!!!

Time of Departure - 9:15am

Time of arrival - 5:55pm

Max Speed - 40.8 mph (Jamie)