A slightly longer day today with a varied and interesting course that skirted major metropolitan centers , Northwich, Warrington,Leigh,Bolton,Blackburn and Preston. A cycled with Jamie and Marty , and sometimes John –
A wise move as Marty ‘s young eyes prevented me from taking a few wrong turns. We took it easy today as it had a lot of intersections , we crossed the major motorways a number of times as we pressed on north

John, Marty and Jamie

Our morning coffee stop at the Black Swan was typical – they had this interesting marker indicating that we are at the half way point in this trip.

The coffee was hopeless , the lady completely clueless, absolutely no idea of what an expresso is , or a cappuccino . She simply gave all of us a weak milky coffee. ( score 2)

We met Jenny – she kind burst our bubble a little . She is also riding to John O’Groats however she started 2 days after us and will cover the distance in 2 weeks – and carries all her kit too. A real woman Brucey!
I did however – at the start of this blog describe our ride as a ” gentleman’s tour”

Had a nice lunch break at this pub that sits right on the big canal , with these colorful canal boats providing some interest. I sampled the local ales of course.

had a look at my first beehives in the UK. Very sad as many of these hives were dead. Not sure If the cause Is this major problem called CCD (colony collapse disorder )
The other possibility is PPB ( piss poor beekeeping ) another issue
Towards the end of the ride we all started getting a little squirmy , uncomfortable . Marty spotted a great cafe at Longridge with the last 15 Kms and we stopped for a great coffee ( a 7 or 8 )
As we cruised down to the the last few Kms Marty produced the quote of the day , ” I want to go to the big Tesco store to see if I can buy a new arsehole”