Unfortunatley, there was no such welcome sign as we entered Wales and so the 'Welcome to England' sign that we came across lost some of its charm.
The bridges were ok, but essentially the Severn Bridge on a bike is like one long gradual hill upwards whilst being utterly battered by the wind.
The Clifton Suspension Bridge was more fun, but we didn't take photos because an official photographer was literally lying in wait for us in the middle of the road. Having nearly run him over, we were both expecting a splendid photo, but one doesn't seem to have materialised in the official ones available on line. Maybe the terror of having an overly excited Justin and Adam cycling towards him made him forget to push the button.
A short way into the day as Justin was nicely tucked in behind Adam, he noticed a hole appearing right in the bottom seam of Adam's cycling shorts. It was getting bigger as he continued to spin those pedals. Luckily, we had come prepared and after Justin's crotch gaping disaster on Day 1, a quick stop in a field with a judiciously placed safety pin prevented Adam from being arrested for indecent exposure. It caused much amusement and second glances as we made our way through heavy Bristol traffic.
On the route map, you can see a little diversion to the east, just below Hereford. As we were cycling up a very steep hill indeed, we were horrified to see cyclists coming back down the other way. As it turned out, some road closures had meant that in order to reach our pitstop, we had to cycle up and then down a very steep hill and then up and down the same hill in reverse. This was not good news! To make matters worse, Justin was having an off day with the Science in Sport energy drinks and gels. Every time he tried to eat or drink them he felt very sick. Desperately hoping that this was just an overdose on sickly Science in Sport products and not 'The Bug', he switched to eating flap jacks and jelly dinosaurs instead - classic sports nutrition, but it did the job.
At the second pit stop, we said a sad good bye to Jonathan Medes who had done some of our training with us. Despite valiantly carrying on whilst vomiting, he had falled foul of 'The Bug', he was no longer able to keep fluid down and so had to pull out for the rest of the afternoon. On a little 'only two days left after this one' high, we both had a good strong finish, even up the steep hill to the campsite in Cheddar. We arrived just in time to get to our tents before a heavy downpour started.
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