So, after the abject disaster that was day one, day two started promisingly. We had another stunning fry up courtesy of the YHA, then sorted out our luggage, mounted up and set off. We decided to start from Penzance reasoning that as two of us had made it to Lands End the previous day, we had basically covered that distance already. Les’ help and advice had taught us that we were underprepared so we went to the bike shop in Penzance to grab a tyre, some tubes, and get the racer looked at. Seemed that there was no other option than to minimise the weight on the racer and fix it if the wheel came out of kilter again as the fella in the shop basically said the hub was old and somewhat shot.
Anyhoo, off we set and we made good time in the morning. West Cornwall has some stunning scenery and lovely villages along the way so we had plenty to look at. The roads weren’t bad and we didn’t get too lost. We ended up in Mullion at lunch time and grabbed ourselves a BLT each along with some lovely Ginger Beer. Ice cream and other sweet bites helped too. We were finding the going relatively easy – especially on the racer, though kudos to Joe and Sam on the mountain bike – it weighed a damn ton (we recon best part of 200kg if not more fully loaded with people on board) – and we all felt good and fit, even on the hills.
Problem 1 struck soon after lunch when we were trying to power up a particularly sharp hill on the racer. As expected the wheel went out of kilter and we had to stop to fix it. Unfortunately it was being somewhat of a bitch, and to add some injury to insult, it was raining by this point. Eventually after much swearing and spanner work, I’d managed to get it free spinning and relatively straight. 20 minute set back, no biggie. Then – and this is my fault – we took a wrong turn in some little village, leading us towards a very steep hill. The mountain bike’s breaks were dubious even with new pads, but by this point they were basically ineffective. I (Ben) shouted to the boys to stop, but on a 1 in 4 there was no chance. I didn’t see the resulting ‘crash’ but what basically happened was they came head to head with a VW Golf on this single track road unable to stop. Somehow Mercer managed to navigate them past and grab a well placed pole by the roadside which swung the bike around and ground them to a stop. Resulting injuries were bruised and cut shins – not so good.
This was a bit of a lesson, from now on hills went like this: Those on the racer walk the bike up so that the gearing didn’t give up; those on the mountain bike walk down so they don’t crash and die. Not a great situation, but the hills had died out a bit so all was well. We decided to switch riders so that Sam could get a break from the heavy mountain bike, so I took the helm with Joe the chief stoker. We continued to make good progress – 40 miles was out of the way heading on 50. I have massive respect for the two mountain bike boys as riding it was tough, but progress continued into Helford where we were to catch our first ferry across the river. Unfortunately, Helford is at the bottom of a steep valley, and the road sloped off before I’d had a chance to bleed off some speed, meaning poor old Joe was on another hell-ride. My hands had the levers pulled to the handle bars, and we continued to gain pace – heading towards what looked like a T-junction with a tight turn left or right. I opted for left, and along with a lot of swearing looked for a suitable bush to bail out into. We made the turn – which was described by Dan and Sam on the racer as looking ‘well cool’. It wasn’t. It was, in fact, ‘well scary’. After the bend, and with a lot of shoe scraping, we bled off enough speed to dismount and bring everything to a stop – lesson learned – no more taking hills lightly on that bike.
Helford is a lovely little village – quintessential south coast of Cornwall with a real hint of community and picture post-card scenery. The ferry – which we found eventually – was actually a small boat, but there was space for the bikes and us, along with some walkers to provide some entertainment to. And boy did they get some entertainment. Whilst loading the trailer onto the boat I dropped my sunglasses into the river. I wanted my sunglasses back, and the river wasn’t too deep, so I opted to jump right in. I did this, and without thinking dipped my whole self under to try and retrieve said shades – with no luck. I should have thought about it and gone for the foot-grip idea – which did eventually come up with the goods. But being a man, hell for leather/lack of thought is usually the first point of call.
Once off the ferry and safely back on dry land, we walked the bikes out of Helford Passage up a big old hill and pushed on towards Falmouth, no more than 6 miles away. Disaster struck, however, about 3 miles out from Falmouth town centre where the gearing on the racer finally gave up the ghost. There was no means of forward propulsion – the pedals free-spinning wildly. The one piece of good luck was we broke down outside a campsite which we opted to use. I think we knew that it was game over this time. If the bike was fixable it was going to be expensive, as there aren’t many 1960s Claud Butler tandem specialists in the area. We’d already thrown lots of money at this and throwing more at it was silly. It was time to call it a day – cut our losses, call it experience and do something else. The mood walking the 1 mile to the nearest pub in the pouring rain was sombre. The mood in the pub where we thought of a variety of ‘Plan 2/3/4/5/6s’ was strained to say the least. We feel that we have a duty to go and do something – complete the challenge – make people’s sponsorship worthwhile as people have given us money to do this. It’s a duty of trust and responsibility which we didn’t want to break, and apart from anything else we were loathed to stop from a personal point of view because after 55 miles during which we felt great and ready for another 9 days of 60 miles. It was galling to make the decision to write off the Tandem Trek.
On the plus, we now have ‘The Trek’ – which we will hopefully start Thursday. This is a loop down onto the Isle of Wight, all the way around it, then back up to North Foreland – Starting in Ashford but following the coast where possible. It’s our contingency and our attempt at gaining something from this abject disaster, and you know what, we can’t wait. We’ll be on our own bikes which won’t break down even if you hit them with a nuke, riding a lovely route which still works out at close to 350/400 miles round trip. We implore you to no longer sponsor, we apologise if you feel a little let down, but we’re doing our best to make your money worthwhile and no one feels more pissed off than us.
So here’s to ‘The Trek’. We’ll let you know how it goes!
