Diary - Day 30

It just wasn't getting any better. The plan was to get to Oxford today but we didn't even achieve that. After heading through Bedford we were coming into Woburn, just outside Milton Keynes, when Sam's bike really began to give up on us. Another puncture, an absolutely knackered tyre, a few other problems and it was a Sunday. Couldn't have been much worse really and after numerous phone calls we were no closer to finding anywhere that would fix the bike. As I was trying to sort out something on the phone to my mum she suddenly said 'Dad will pick you up if you need it'. Not a tough decision really, we were going nowhere fast and had few options on the worst day of the week to be trying to get anything done. We were picked up from Woburn a little after midday and driven back to Stanford-in-the-vale to spend the next couple of days at my parents.

We could have left on the Tuesday, maybe even the Monday, but there was little point. We had visits organised to a few breweries in Northampton, another in the Chilterns and more further south so I had no intention of ringing them all up and asking to change dates. We would begin again in Northampton on Wednesday, about 20 miles further from Oxford than we had stopped previously, but in position to arrive at our next two breweries on time and to continue to the end of the ride, hopefully without too much more drama.

In the meantime we took Sam's bike into Giles Sports in Carterton in order to get it fixed and ready to do the last 500 odd miles. As usual they were perfectly reliable and the rest of the journey went without incident for Sam's bike, the only time on the trip that that was the case.