Argh!

I know a couple of days ago I said I thought this blog was getting fewer hits while everything was going swimmingly...well yesterday was a bit of a disaster!

Set off well enough, made decent time to Nailsworth where I found Pete Reed's postboxes fairly easily...

From there I climbed a hill called The Ladder, which was a bit of a killer before finding the road I would be on for pretty much the rest of the day. All was going really well until about 7 miles outside Cirencester I heard my back tyre hemorrhaging air. I tried to remain calm, pulled over to the side of the road and switched inner tubes. At this point I discovered that CO2 pumps are unreliable so I resorted to waving down cars. Eventually a lovely couple, Mark and Mel, stopped and we bodged together enough air in the tyre to get to Halfords. There they told me that the old tyre was ruined, it was, and so I got a replacement and had them switch them over in the shop in Cirencester.

I set off again, probably about an hour behind schedule and with no trust in my bike, but fairly shortly reached Ampney St Peter and found Laura Bechtolsheimer's postbox, another one down...

I checked my route, it was about 60miles to Henley and then about 10miles to Reading, where I was staying the night. Luckily evening's are quite light til late, but it was still a big ask.
So, I set off again and a few miles down the road my tyre popped again. Luckily this time it went just as I arrived at a little village called Meysey Hampton so I went knocking on doors to beg for help. An exceptionally kind man answered after a couple of houses and took me and my wheel down the road to a Performance Cycles in Poulton. We changed the inner tube over again (very, very kindly donated) picked up a new pump and went back to the rest of the bike. Wheel fitted, bags reloaded, 55miles to go to Henley and still no faith in my bike, the joys! It was 3pm and my phone was rapidly running out of battery.

I got on the road again and rode for all I was worth, through some small places I've never heard of then over to Didcot, Wallingford and dropping into Henley at 7.45. I found the box easy enough and turned on my phone. Carl, my sister's fiancé, was on his way to collect me and Alex Gregory and Pete Reed wanted to come out and see me. Alex arrived first and we had a chat, he gave me some energy gels and such, then took a picture of me wearing his gold medal (one of the main goals of the trip for me!). Carl then arrived and took a pic of me and Alex at the post box before Pete arrived and gave me chocolate bars (they're already been eaten). We all spoke for a while and they told me they were really impressed with what I was doing and hoped I was successful and that I should get some publicity for it, which was brilliant.
As a side note, I don't think I've ever seen two bigger men in my life, I'm 6ft and was completely dwarfed by them! Men-mountain the pair of them.

All-in-all the ending in Henley went a really long way to making up for the nightmare of the rest of the day. Seriously, my longest ride of the whole journey and that happened! Ok, moving on, all's well that ends well.

I had to skip the remaining 10miles to Reading, but I'm here, fed and just about rested.

10 days to go. Reading to Milton Keynes to Bedford today, before the joys of London traffic tomorrow