If something can go wrong, it will go wrong.

That's a well known maxim but I can't remember to whom it's attributed. Whoever came up with it must have had our day today in mind.
Thank. Goodness. That's. Over.
A really late start as James had an emergency mission to fit himself out with proper cycling shoes and pedals. These made a massive difference and saved his expedition from a potentially very dissappointing premature end through muscle strain. David (I think) at the Bike Factory Specialized shop in Boughton sorted him out superbly.
We didn't get away until after 11 but this was okay as we wanted a brief break. As the day unfolded we wished we'd set off much earlier.
Steve and Iain (the birthday boys) came with us to Farndon in pretty decent weather and it was a nice run.
Along the way we were caught up in a cycling time trial and were overtaken by a couple of riders. I have to say that even with their specialised bikes we kept respectably
close behind. A visit to the Welsh border in Farndon and then our two guest Jogler's went home (happy birthday Emma).
We made our way the few miles to Shocklach when the fun began...
Alan pointed out that I'd got a puncture so we pulled over to fix it. Rear wheel = very oily hands however I managed to replace the tube with a spare I had. As previously blogged handpumps can't get road tyres to full pressure but we were luck that Karen, James's wife was in the vicinity to bring us the trackpump. Sorted we set off and 15 metres later stopped again I haing reaised the tyre wasn't fitted properly (my incompetence on display again. Cue deflate & reflation and luckily Karen hadn't driven off into the distance.
We set off again but 1/2 a mile on I'd got another puncture. Unless I'd been inept it was an awful piece of bad luck. You'd assume the former but the rest of the day's events point to it being the latter. We phoned Karen who fortunately wasn't too far away. I changed the tube again and was pumping it up when it literally exploded. James kids and the dog who were observing almost leapt into Shropshire with the shock. I was getting seriously hacked off with having to put a third tube on in 10 minutes. My last spare tube fitted we were on our way. I had enough oil on my hands to fill an engine (was beginning to wish I'd got one by now.)
Having got underway it started to rain quite heavily and we were soaked. I was in front and heard James call 'man down'. Poor Alan had suffered a broken chain. To add to his misery he forgot his feet were clipped in and toppled over on to the floor wounding his leg. Fixing a chain is hard enough but in the rain it's miserable. Chain fixed and elastoplast applied we set off.
We made good progress to Shocklach and decided to pull over to eat our sandwiches in the Fox Inn in Wem. At this point James also forgot that his new shoes were clipped in and......... toppled over! I bet the lads in the pub who saw him didn't laugh much.
I parked up and Alan spotted...... guess what.....I had a third puncture. I'd lost the will to live so Alan kindly replaced it for me. No more spares so had to repair one of the punctured tubes. Luckily, again, Karen happened also to be in Wem with the track pump.
By now it was 4pm and we still had 40 miles to do - not good.
Karen raced off to try and find supplies of spare inner tubes whilst we cracked on to Shrewsbury. At this point we realised that if we wanted to get to Ludlow before midnight we'd have to forsake James's carefully mapped scenic route for a quicker, and definitely nastier, run along the A49.
It was a long run and I started to get stabbing pains in my knee which slowed me down. I think we were all cold and tired to - that would explain why James fell off his bike, again, and Alan collided with a road sign!
You couldn't make this up.....
James got worried when e saw a police car, blue lights flashing etc with a stopped car and a policeman waving him down. He couldn't understand why (excessive wearing of lycra in a rural area perhaps?) Amazing the bobby was just my dad in a blue shirt who'd driven all the way from Lichfield to see us with his wife Pat and my sister Linda with hubby Andy. Thanks to them for giving up their day just to spend 5 minutes standing in the rain talking to us. It was much appreciated and we resumed cycling encouraged.
We still had 20 miles to do and it was 7pm. Karen had gone on ahead to sort out accomodation and somewhere we could eat as it was going to be touch and go if any restaraunts would still be serving by the time we reached Ludlow.
We finally limped in 2 hours later through mixed rain and totally exhausted. I certainly shouldn't be ungrateful to Karen after all she's done for us but I do wish she'd remembered to tell us that the 2 mile diversion was unnecessary....
Karen had us sorted and at 9pm we arrived and sat down to a pint and a steak in the Feathers Hotel in Ludlow. Fantastic and so pleased that what must surely rank as our worst day was finally over. 3 pints of recuperative Ludlow Gold beer later and we retired to our B&Bs, Karen having commandeered our room at the original place for her and the boys but found us an equally nice room at the Cecil guest house. One for you Beak.
Happy birthday Hilda (Helen's mum), I hear you all had a good day.
We're all very tired and glad the day's over but are wary of another long day in the rain tomorrow. So long as there are no more punctures/broken chains/ comedy toppling overs we should have half a chance.
Alan snores by the way.