A Day in Penzance

Woke up at around 7.30 - it could easily have been a few hours later but wanted to get into getting up early sleep pattern and also the Olymic torch was coming through the town at around 8.30. I decided to test out my new clipless cycle shoes (at least I think they are called 'clipless' - the proper cycling shoes which click into the pedals) which I'd failed to try before leaving London. I rode towards the seafront and when I unclipped lost one of the cleat bolts. great. so i scoured the floor around, went back to the hostel/room scoured some more but couldn't find it. Anyway after giving up looking I headed down towards thee seafront to watch the Olympic torch parade come into town. There was a large crowd with flags/bunting everywhere and the parade consisted of 2 large coaches with sponsors adverts, a girl on loudspeaker talikng to the crowd, some random people doing cartwheels etc., a guy on a bmx doing tricks people giving out flags etc. followed eventually by police cars, another coach and of course the torch. Was a great atmosphere and welcome to the town. After the parade I got myself an amazing pasty from one of the many local bakers along with a danish pastry and mars ice cream and managed to find a bike shop and got the replacement shoe bolt, spare spokes and wet lube. I then went back to the hostel and tried to finish printing my route off (I didn't allow enough time for doing this before leaving for cornwall so decided I'd do it the day before the ride - bad idea). I initially tried to print it off at the hostel but the route is a tcx file (unusual type of file that is a pain to view/save/print) so that failed. I then decided to head down to a nice sandy beach a few miles away and spent a few hours lying in the sun - should have put sun cream on despite it being broken clouds/not very intense sunlight. Then headed back to town and got myself a jacket potato for lunch followed by a double cornish ice cream cone and had a wander around for a bit. The wandering was followed by trying and failing again to print off my route/ making notes for the ride tomorrow's ride/ trying to organise everything. Then showered and went for a ravioli or something similar followed by chocolate cake a short walk down the seafront. Then walked back and went to bed.