Right chaps... brief story for those interested.
Thurs:
* 0740 - left to drop my daughter off at child minder
* 0805 - man comes to start driveway project (and asks lots of difficult questions!)
* 0807 - taxi arrives to take me to an M1 junction
* 0835 - jump in the M3 CSL (this thing is the nuts)
* 1030 - quick shift at client site
* 1500 - hit the road to the Dales
</non cycling chat>
* 1800 - get assigned a ******* mountain bike. Like a proper Trek low PSI rock crawling thing. Fuming.
* 2000 - dinner
* 2005 - start to Gumtree for a road bike
* 2007 - find the only road bike available, grab the boss and his M3 CSL
* 2100 - arrive Lancaster - ask boss for money as I had forgot my debit card
</career limiting decisions>
My beauty! £140 beer tokens for a desperate student. This baby has carbon forks!
Fri:
* 0700 - gale force winds and torrential rain
* 0730 - departure
* 0745 - get mad at crappy water bottle holder and ask colleague to hold bottle for me
* 0747 - lose colleague with my water bottle
* 0930 - first puncture, same boss who has basically been my surrogate father provides me with a spare inner tube
* 0934 - lose mobile phone.....FML. Back track 2km and find phone, result!
<pain and suffering>
* 1230ish - hit lunch stop, SHEER nut that holds seat on...........FML!
* 1330 - after running about 5km to every shop in town, I find a legend of a bike shop who hasn't yet opened his workshop - despite that he walks me up the road to his unit and finds me a nut!
* 1400ish - back on the road
<pain and suffering>
Summary (no proper tracking data unfortunately):
+ 63 miles (at least)
+ 1749 ft elevation / - 148ft (hills were killer)
Saturday:
* Much more chilled, very flat.
* Only major event was the Irish lads realising they had no way home so I rented a one way van drop off and got them to the airport with their bikes, and heading on home with my new bike.
Summary:
+ 35.7 mile (at least)
+ 489ft elevation
Executive Summary:
Cycling isn't for me.
Thank you all for the advice and support! Almost £20k raised for BRC and Barnados so far.