DAY 4 update from Pierre

Bad news today folks: Neil & I were beaten twice by an Englishman (Bruce!), up the two highest hills: Shap & the climb out of Moffat. We finished together at the top of Shap (just north of Kendal), some say, 4 minutes behind him. Bruce pretends he could have been sooner at the top, had he not had to fix a puncture on the way. Right! Neil & I were delayed too by having to rebuild our wheels... Anyhow, we all played had he time to play a game of chess or two before the rest of contigent arrived, some 20 minutes later...

Bishop Simeon Trust has explicitally fordidden any "bonking" amongst the TRAT riders. So as you can imagine, food is high on our agendas. I caught Bruce injecting himself with porridge this morning - a substance banned by the organisers (it enhances performance). Breakfast at 5:30, sausage roll at 8:30, bigmac & chips at 10:30, 3 bowls of soup at Gretna, stuffed bananas (with peanut butter and jam - a south african special) before Moffat at 2:00, cakes at 4:00 and then a huge dinner. None of us can just believe how hungry we always are!

Today was testing in many ways (in addition to the physical effort): weather turned awful at Carlisle when we all turned into drowned rats on bikes. This carried on for the best part of the day until Moffat, when miraculously the sun made an apparition and made the countryside look stunning. Just before Broughton, Neil broke his chain and rear derailleur! A bike is not much use without these: I towed him for a few miles to Broughton when we rejoined the group and the support van where an improvised bike swap was organised... We reached our destination at 7:30, some 13 hours after leaving Kendal (not all of that was cycling, I hasten to add). Thankfully the team was great and so was BST support. And hey: we're in Scotland at last, and ready to push on to Aviemore tomorrow.

Pierre