Day 1 - 68 for starters

Route: Land’s End to Lostwithiel
Miles today: 68

“Today, we have mostly been cycling”. There was a frisson of excitement as we sped down to Land’s End and the starting line at 9.30a.m. Already there were cyclists coming the other way, presumably starting the same journey.

The windblown cliff top complete with wooden sign highlighting that John O’Groats is the best part of a thousand miles away has given way to a very second rate affair apologetically planted immediately outside the tackiest of developments imaginable. Land’s End has gone all faux Disney, but in a cheap and nasty way. Nevertheless we lined up for our photos. As we did so a gaggle of Geordies were unloading their bikes from a well organised van. A brief exchange, in spite of language difficulties, established that while we were planning the trip in 12 days averaging 80 miles a day, they were on a schedule of ten days and 100 miles a day. As we left you could almost hear them wishing us well while thinking we are a bunch of southern pansies. And let’s be honest, we are. Still, even the rock hard Geordies were all 50 and doing the trip to mark the event, just as we are.

We set off in quintessential Cornish conditions – wind howling, thick cloud moving swiftly and ominously across the skyline and seeking protective care of our luminous green rain jackets. Needless to say the Geordies were in t-shirts and worried about dealing with the heat. We gave Alastair a quick remedial lesson on how to use the gears and we were off, heading back to Penzance from whence we had just come. Our first wrong turn was in the car park, which doesn’t bode well for the trip as a whole, but thereafter we broadly kept to the Nick the routemaster’s detailed itinerary. Penzance came and went, the sun came out. We followed round the bay through Marazion with St Michael’s Mount looking glorious in the sunshine.

Our route is designed around B-roads wherever possible and so we headed into the lanes, flanked by hedgerows, rolling hills following one after the other and bowled merrily along until we got to Redruth for a mid morning break of bananas and an energy boosting mix of raisins, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and dried apricot.

On we went, now heading for Truro, getting slightly lost en route but detouring in the town to check out the cathedral. Out into the country again up a good sized pre-lunch hill and on to Ladock. A hostelry agreed to accept our business despite our matching blue cycling attire. A strange culinary combination of roast pork in a ciabatta type roll and dropped in gravy accompanied by a solitary roast potato may have been unconventional but it hit the spot, providing the ‘carbs’ we were craving. All washed down with a pint of lime and soda. Back on our trusty steeds and another 26 miles that took out towards Bodmin and St Austell before we finally found refuge in the Royal Oak in Lostwithiel.

Nick had promised that our first day would be relatively flat and so it proved to be. As flat as a pancake in fact if you’re Tibetan. But being southern pansies, it felt as if we put in a bit of vertical. Apparently, the vertical increases tomorrow to a significant degree. Joy.

And finally, a word on tonight’s accommodation. Having deposited bikes in the cellar we were greeted by the landlady, who seemed very interested in what we were doing, although she struggled to understand why we were walking all that way, or why indeed we needed helmets. The pub has run out of ale, possibly because she has drunk it all. We stayed for dinner where we were the only guests. Service was slow but then it must be difficult preparing six covers when you’re that pissed. The words “Fawlty” and “Towers” seem apt by way of summary.