Thankfully, everything went ok for our scheduled start. We reached Birminham New Street in plenty of time for our train to Penzance (and for Roz to take photos) and five and a half hours later, at around 2.45pm, we arrived to a pleasant sunny afternoon. After the official photo on the platform before we set off for the Prologue (as they say, for technical reasons, I can't upload the first photos tonight, but hopefully will be able to tomorrow evening), we were underway just after 3pm. Everything went fine for all of about 800 yards (for younger readers, I think that's about 730 metres), when I realised that I was either going at 0 mph, or my bike computer wasn't functioning - having had all of three and a half hours sleep Saturday night and no lunch, as we'd guessed incorrectly when the refreshment trolley would make it's last appearance on the train, it was a close call as to what the problem was. In the event, having stopped and fiddled with sensors, I gave up the computer and will try to sort it out for Monday morning.
We duly arrived at Land's End 12 miles later and before anything else we rapidly consumed a Cornish pasty each - very good they were too.
After the obligatory photos in front of the signpost, we set off again and duly arrived this evening in Hayle, where I typing this sitting outside an Italian restaurant feeling a lot better after a proper meal.
Hat's off to Martin's estimation of mileage for today's afternoon first leg - he'd estimated 38 miles and it came in at 37.62 (it may have been short, but there are a heck of a lot of hills!). Tomorrow, we're expecting to do double today's distance 76 miles and lots more hills - deep joy!
That's it for day one and many thanks from the two of us for the interest, the good wishes and the donations that have been coming in.
And so to bed.
Ian
This is the blog recording the progress of Ian and Martin's ride, starting from Land's End on June 15th and planning to reach John O'Groats on July 3rd. As you can see from the photo, which was taken after a training ride, we are supporting Beating Bowel Cancer. Ian is the tired looking one on the left!
