Final Day!!!!

At 1.20pm on Sunday we crossed the finish line in the tiny hamlet of Mead. What is so strange is that I had predicted we would arrive about 1pm when I was planning the route several months previously, so to arrive only 20 minutes late was pretty good!! The day was not without its dramas though. I had thought that we were done with all the big hills, but we faced one of our toughest climbs in the whole ride up to the radar station above Bude. We just managed it though, but as we passed the crest I fumbled a gear change - by now the Beast's cables had all stretched, making gearchanging a bit of a lottery - and we bent a link in the chain. This would have made further progress impossible, particularly as I had forgotten to put in my chain splitter that morning. Luckily, Conrad had one, so we managed to split the chain and rejoin it using a pin from the broken section. (Split links do not work on a chain this old, we discovered!). So all was well and we were able to carry on about 30 minutes later. Unfortunately, we had had to shorten the chain quite considerably, so I lost all my lowest gears - essential for climbing with!! That meant that the final hill, by our standards now quite easy if we had had the gearing, was walked up. But then a swift swoop along lovely country lanes to our final destination, the Old Smithy Pub in Mead. We were greeted there by all the team, quite an emotional moment for all of us!! I will update this later with photos and more comment on the past 3 days. But a huge thank you to all who have helped us - too numerous to mention, but you all know who you are!!