LEJOG Blog

Today, the weather seemed to remember that it's April and not July. We awoke to cloud and mist, although by the time we set off from Sedburgh, the mist had mostly lifted.

We knew today would be tough with somewhere in the region of 70 miles to cover. We climbed the B-road from Sedburgh and had to push the bike two or three times. We had a fine elevenses stop in Orton, but immediately on setting off, I snapped one of the gear cables.

Although Rohloff and Thorn boast that it is possible to change gear whether or not you are pedalling, it is easier to do so when you are not. With a solo bike, this becomes second nature, but with a tandem if the stoker is applying pressure to a pedal, then operating the twist grip presents problems. I am developing quite a callous on my right thumb because of gear changes. I had put this down to the extra cable length, but it is really down to poor communication between Janet and me.

After the cable had broken, I could still change gear after a fashion. The Very Nice Man at Orton Post Office gave me the number of Arragon's Cycle Shop in Penrith, and after some struggling over some very high fells, we descended into Shap and eventually found ourselves in Penrith outside said bike shop.

Their man set to work pretty promptly and after a call to Bridgewater to find out how the Rohloff gear changing system works, he managed to withdraw the broken cable and replace it with a new one. Annoyingly, it takes Torque 20 tool to undo the bolts, which is pretty silly because Thorn and Rohloff do not supply such things as standard. Even if I had brought some spare cable with me, I would not have been able to do the job.

As well as paying for the work to be done, I also replaced the lost Cateye microcomputer.

All of this held us up to the extent that Chris, who arrived in Carlisle at around 2pm, was kept hanging about until 5 before we arrived. With little further ado, we set off for Annan but rush hour Carlisle is not my favourite place. We exchanged a few pleasantries with a Bromptoneer on the A7, but he turned off before the horrendous roundabout at which the M6 becomes the A74.

We got round the A7/A74/M6 roundabout with few problems, but the A7 itself and subsequently the A6071 were pretty fast with poor surfaces. Shortly after leaving Longtown, Jan and I heard a noise to our right and looked to see the white rump of a fallow deer disappearing amongst the trees.

We entered Scotland around 7pm and suitable photographs were taken, but no wee drams were to be had. After that, we struggled along the B721 for about nine miles towards Annan. This was the first occasion in about 600 miles that we had had either the sun or the wind in our faces. We were treated to a beautiful Solway sunset.

After showering and washing a few clothes, we went to the Sitar Indian Restaurant, which was very good and reasonably priced.