Tears, Traffic and Tumbles

You remember how happy I was that I was leaving Scotland? Well it gave me a massive kick in the teeth on exit. I was cycling in literally first and second gear for the first 10miles of the day. Almost entirely uphill and varies degrees of ridiculously steep. After about 7miles of continual climbing I broke. My legs were screaming, my head had gone and I just wanted to go home, so for the next few minutes I kept riding whilst crying. Not my happiest time, but I suppose the best thing to say is that I got through it.

From there it was largely downhill. Northumberland had a few little attacks at me, but on the whole it was fairly straightforward.

Next issue, and this was terrifying, was the A1. From Newcastle airport I picked it up and it was going pretty well, it had a cycle lane and there were signs for Durham. A few miles later as I approached the exits and entrances for Gateshead and Newcastle it all got a bit dangerous. Again, I soldiered on and kept ticking the miles down towards the destination. Then a sign appeared saying start of motorway so obviously I make a swift exit and get hopelessly lost because for some reason Durham wasn't signposted. I followed my phone's directions and after some messing around got on the right track.

So far we've done tears and traffic, so I think we're approaching the part most people are interested in...unfortunately it's not that interesting.
As I arrived at a roundabout I looked, slowed to a stop and unclipped my right shoe. However (I put it down to fatigue), my weight was shifted to my left so I completely overbalanced, couldn't flick my other leg out and fell down. Stupid situation but it happened so we move on.

Anyways, I reached Durham, spent a while getting lost because of poor signposting, but eventually found where I was going. Then it was time to eat! Spag bol, garlic bread, cookies, malt loaf and crisps. Lovely.

Now we reach today's ride. I'm due in Grassington for the evening but I'm sure everyone has seen the forecast and it looks absolutely dreadful. Potentially there's going to be a rearrangement meaning the Andrew Triggs-Hodge box in Hebden may be delayed or visited by car after cycling somewhere else, but we shall see.

My dad's coming out to meet me this evening and shadowing me for the next couple of days so that should be nice.

I shall let you know what happens with the route, but until then @Pedal_Medal and www.justgiving.com/samlevey