It's climbing all the
way to Clitheroe, and I find I have legs of jelly, a temperature and a cold sweat. Apparently, there's been a bug going round... Fortunately I also have a loo roll in my bike bag.....I resort to pushing the bike as much as riding it in the beautiful but hilly terrain. In fact, I'm on and off more often than Katie Price's knickers.
Rod kindly stays with me, and I welcome the sanctuary of the stationary minibus, where I put on extra clothing to keep warm, and take Anadin and Diocalm, which looks and smells like a dishwasher tablet, but does the job of 'capping the well', as a BP spokesman would say. Our Leader suggests I join him in the bus for the rest of the day, which is meant well, but is all the motivation I need, and I'm back in the saddle seconds later.
It's great - and relatively unknown - countryside around Bowland Forest, and Rod gets many photos as I struggle up the inclines. Eventually we reach Kirkby Lonsdale, where the others lunch, but I can't face anything but the odd energy bar, concious of the need to re-fuel somehow.
With our schedule there's simply no time to take time out, so we agree on damage limitation, to see how far we can get during hours of daylight, even at reduced pace. Rod reminds me that the only feeling worse than riding in discomfort is the feeling of quitting.
At Kendal we pick up the A6 again and gradually I get back into it, happy to be going north and on a good road. I'm drinking plenty of fluid, and it seems to be doing the job of flushing out the system. I'm no longer thinking of Hughie and Ruth...
We climb over Spap, and reward ourselves with an alfresco fish & chips in Shap village, though I don't tempt fate, and avoid the curry sauce.
Feeling good now in the evening sun, and we press
on through Penrith to Plumpton, where we call it a day as the light's fading, 10 miles short of Carlisle. Given the circumstances, 79 miles in 8 hours' riding represents a good recovery.
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