Woke up at around 5.30 not feeling too bad considering yesterday's ordeal. Went down and had some cereal then decided that i'd give the bike it's first (and only) clean of the trip. This of course took longer than expected as despite the dry weather the chain and chainrings were filthy. Didn't set off until about 7.45 and as soon as I stept on the bike my derierre was very painful particularly with my fingers still tingling and palms still sore from yesterday. Was also very tired and stopped after less than 10 miles to eat my complimentary hotel biscuits to give me a bit of a boost. It was another hot day and was a slog to Carlisle at around 32 miles for the first break of the day. Bought and consumed my standard service station meal deal of a pasty, bag of crisps and bottle of water along with a few mars bars, withdrew some more money as had underestimated the £30-35 per day I would need for food and water. I managed to cross the Scottish border and get to Dumfries at around 12.30, and was doing ok for time so decided to find an internet cafe to update the blog. There wasn't an internet cafe but did find a library which let me use a computer. So I updated the first few days of the blog whist carefully eating my lunch trying not to get any pastry crumbs on the immaculate keyboard. After finally doing the first few days of the blog, quick facebook update/emails I set off at around 3.30 still with 60 miles to go. Maybe an hour or so later I got my second puncture of the trip. I went to open my saddle bag to get my puncture kit out to discover that i'd clearly not put the top back on the chain lubricant earlier and so everything was covered in oil. great. So I emptied everything out of the bag and gave it a wipe off with a flannel and set to work trying to repair the puncture. It turned out that the patch i'd used for the previous puncture had come loose so I initially tried to rip the old patch off and put a new patch in it's place - this failed. So then I replaced the inner tube which eventually worked (the CO2 cannister I'd bought at the bike shop in Weston Super Mare would either not work or I was doing something wrong so went back to using my small hand pump. This was all very tricky (far harder than the first puncture repair on day 1) as the tingling/numbness in my fingers was making life much harder - especially fiddling around with the presta valve, as well as lorries thundering past every other minute. Eventually I managed to fix the puncture and clean/repack the oily saddle bag (taking around an hour) and was on my way with still 40 or 50 miles to go. I was pushing myself as much I could as new I was pushed for time (everything ached - again a case of mind over matter). The route was again only a few A roads which were easy to navigate but the roads were again inconsistent (sometimes smooth sometimes bad). I managed to find my hotel near Irvine easily enough by about 8.30 and checked in/had a shower/ went to the hotel restaurant for a meal. Had my below par lasagne and chips for dinner, went back to my room and went to bed.
Reviews
Hotel (Kidron Hotel, Irvine) 6/10: expensive, food not good, service ok, room ok, safe place for bike
Lessons Learned
Learn how to use a C02 cannister before leaving the shop having bought it, take more care to ensure lubricant lid is on before putting it in saddlebag.
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