English leg

First of all, we would all like to say a massive thank you to all our family and friends who came to the fox covert to see us off. Your support is hugely appreciated.

The main focus of our first blog is to say thank you to everyone for looking after us during our first leg, being England. Also to highlight the extreme arrogance of thinking we didn't require any prior training before setting off on an around the world cycle ride.

As you all probably know it hasn't been the sunniest of weeks, to that end we didn't manage to make It through a full day without getting wet. However spirits remained high and we still managed to score a prime steak in a bun at the east Rounton village barbecue. So many thanks to the people of east Rounton who warmly invited us in and let Ste do what he does best....TALK. After giving the villagers a politician like speech we started to bang in the miles. We cracked 60 odd miles on our first day and eventually made it to the town of Tadcaster famous for the John and Sam Smith brewery's. So it goes without saying we did what we do best and sampled the local ales.

We rose the next day with moderately sore legs un aware of the day we were about to embark on. The target for the day was to make it to Sheffield to see our dear friend Jordan Langton aka 'the douchebag'. From whom we had been promised hot showers, big scran and comfy bed each in his new pad. So we hit the road and immediately hit what was to be the hardest day of riding of the first week. Main components of this difficult day were 50 miles of hills with our heavily laden bikes and heavy rain all day. We eventually made it into Sheffield to the douchebags at which we ate our body weight in delicious food he made for us and re-administered ourselves ready for the next day of riding. We would all like to say a huge thank you to Jordan for taking us in and looking after us on such a bleak day. Top man!

Again we cracked on, nothing substantial happened the next day and we made camp in a farmers field after another day of 50 and woke the next morning sore which seemed to be the trending pattern for the first week. We cycled ten miles into another famous town.... Melton Mowbray. For breakfast we had a pie eating competition of which a video will follow. The standings were 1st- Jamie Davison, 2nd- Thomas Mcpartland, 3rd- Sam Richardson, 4th- Luke Rock. Later on that day we stopped at a sainsburys for some tea. Jamie bought himself some beef jerky, he obviously thought it didn't have quite the taste he was after. So he decided to use the packet of silica powder to season it, as we all know the silica powder is use to keep the moisture out of the meat and is toxic and should never be consumed, evidently jamie didnt realise this and ignored the clear 'do not eat' bold lettering on the packet instead he thought it would make as a a good substitute for pepper. That night we camped in a kind woman's garden, which we shared with her pet goose and her dogs. We also had our first test run of the whisperlite stove and a kit review video will follow.

The next morning we woke up to two surprises. The first, mac showering naked under the woman's garden hose. Then a phone call from Chris Richardson himself telling us he had a great friend who lived 20 miles from London near St. Albans who would be happy to put us up for the night. We cycled hard all day In the blazing sunshine interrupted a few times with a little bit of our good friend Ronald rain. We stopped Just shy of letty green In Wellwyn Garden City for some late lunch before the last three miles to Dave and Jens. We pulled into the gorgeous estate where they live which is inside the polo clubs grounds. Jen pulled in shortly behind us with bags of food and drink for a barbecue they had planned for us. So again we did what we do best and sank a few beers, a few bottles of wine and a delicious barbecue put on by Jen and Dave. We had a great night with them. Lots of laughs and Ste bit off a bit more than he could chew receiving a massage from Jens physio friend Susie for his sore knee. So another huge thankyou to Dave and Jen Burns, we had a brilliant night.

The next morning we woke up to a rainstorm, we had some breakfast croissants and coffee, watched the news and weather, this told us about more rain all day. Jen told us about a sneaky cycle path which would take us all the way into London running along a canal. We packed up, left and took the advice. We rode about ten miles on the cole green way cycle route, however it didn't look like we had been cycling, it looked like we had been mud wrestling with our bikes in a swamp. We consulted the map and realised at Jens and Daves by road we were 22 miles from London. once we had wrestled through the swamp for ten miles we were still 22 miles from London. We thought it may be more productive to get on a tarmac road and bang in some fast miles cause we were all eager to get to London apart from Luke, he wanted to stay on the dirt track and play mountain biking with his 60kg touring bike. Once we got to London, we were met by a huge dish of pasta cooked previously by Joe Richardson, Sams brother which was spot on. Joe and Rosie (Sams aunty) soon followed with gifts. Joe brought beers and Rosie brought enough Clinique products to last the whole mission. Needless to say Mac was over the moon. We all got ready and went out on Shoreditch high street. We met the Davison tribe including Jamie, Patrick (big Pod), Chris and Phil. So they were out in force. Phil aka Donald Trump got us a table in a club with a 300 pound bottle of grey goose sitting on it which was the size of Ste. The next morning we made a trip to the Breakfast Club to try and cure our hangovers. Later we went back out drinking, surprise surprise. We went to a Thai restaurant called Busabi and then met our old friend Evan Herbert for a few shandies. We decided to stay an extra few nights and we have decided to set off tomorrow mid day to head towards the continent in search of the elusive sun.