I heard It Through The Grapevine

By -

To keep my panniers as light as possible I am travelling with the absolute minimum of non-cycling kit.  This means just one set of evening clothes.  Imagine my delight when the barman threw a full pint over me in 'spoons yesterday evening.  He said it was an accident but I suspect he has been reading this blog.  The only upside was the large glass of wine I extorted from them by way of an apology but, as I stood in my pants washing my shoes in the sink later, this didn't feel sufficient.

Today it all went horribly wrong.  Thus far we have been enjoying a moderate tailwind but today was the day we turned and started bearing west and the tailwind became a crosswind then a headwind.  We were prepared for this.  What we weren't prepared for was the wind speed rising from 10-15mph to OVER 40.  Bugger!  Our average speed dropped so low that we turned off our speedometers and started using a calender.  Eventually we even gave that up and occasionally just asked passers by what century we were in.  Oh yes, to cap it all, the Great Scottish Drought has finished.

The high spot in a piss awful day is that our B&B provides access to a kitchen and we have procured tasty things for tea.  Even this isn't as great as it sounds because the only place to shop was 25 hilly miles before the finish so we had to haul food and halal recovery drinks over hills for the last 3 hours.

We should eat well tonight.....in addition to our own generous supplies the landlady has given us a family size lasagne left by a previous guest.

You may be wondering how any if this relates to the song......well there is a sort of link but you will have to think about it a bit.  To help you, think 1980s TV ads.  A fantastic prize to the first correct answer posted as a Facebook comment.  If there are no comments it will be because you are all fools, or nobody can be bothered....I will assume the former.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rage Hard

By -
Image
Leading a tour down the US West Coast isn't the worst way to spend 4 weeks and it has many compensations.  The weather is lovely, the scenery is off the scale and you get to drink magnificent craft beers and eat well.  Putting out the odd fire and springing pillocks from jail is all part of the sport. BUT, and it is a big but (you get a lot of big butts in Merica), the daily hotel check-in is absolutely the worst thing.  Regardless of how carefully you have checked the reservations there is a clenching of the buttocks as you approach reception.  Today the first contact was good....they had all 15 rooms and cats were allowed.....but they weren't ready.  No problem, I was 30 minutes early.  30 minutes later.....still no rooms.  Cyclists were arriving; hot, tired grumpy cyclists.  The receptionist had run out of fucks to give several years ago.  I asked to see the manager.  Out walked a thing that was once the manger but was now a barrel of lard with a head.  We exchan
Read more

Now That's What I Call Music Volme 4

By -
Image
Won't Stop Running/Golden Brown The 24-hour dysentery that has been working through the group has now reached me.  Bugger. Invisible  When making any on-line transaction in Merica is necessary to provide a telephone number and a valid zip code.  If paying by credit card this must match the zip code the card is registered to.  There is absolutely no provision for anyone without a US phone number and a card registered to a US address.  It's like non-Mericans don't exist or, maybe, just aren't worth bothering about. Some hotels and supermarkets have devices to scan photo-id. You've guessed it....these only recognise US driving licences.  For hotels you have to piss off and find your passport and in stores you have to wait while the manager is called to authorise the purchase.   We should retaliate and only serve Mericans in the UK if they can correctly pronounce Leicester Square. Wonderful Copenhagen Today we have ridden
Read more

Drinking in L.A

By -
Image
We are starting to entertain the very remote possibility that we will make it to the Mexican border! It continues to be an uphill struggle with mechanical and logistical challenges but we battle on. On Tuesday night our hotel was several miles from restaurants so we cleared a few seats in the van and sent out the simplest of instructions......form yourselves into a group of 6 and another of 7, decide whether you want to go to the harbour or downtown and pick a time.  What could possibly go wrong?  We had groups of 4, groups where most wanted the harbour but others wanted downtown, both groups wanting the same time...........I finally got off duty at 9pm, another 14 hour day! Yesterday we rode down through Malibu, Santa Monica and Venice Beach, the latter portion on a superb bike path through the beach.  Despite some heavy traffic in Malibu everyone enjoyed the day and we all arrived in Redondo Beach in high spirits.  Despite an already very high bar in terms of hotel in
Read more