Hold the front page –the bike is fixed – finally! Tuesday 4 October 2011

Bucket man was remarkably upbeat tonight – “I should reach the coast tomorrow” he said.  “Good we said, is that it, can we leave it at that?”   Sadly not, he then burbled on for his usual ten minutes so take a deep breath and read on…

Africa is looming on the southern horizon, Insha'Allah!

He has reached the town of Lucena, and is staying in the Hotel Baltanas which Bob (or his brother, we are not quite sure) has fixed up for him, a real bargain at either £23 or €25, the little man wasn’t sure.  “Is it a yummy hotel” we enquired, “no, but it is adequate” our very own Hotel Inspector replied.   He has covered 125 miles, and says it was a good day as it was very hilly.  At lunchtime he sent us the photo of the town in which he enjoyed a break, where he had a very nice calamari lunch – at last he has upped his game from the McDonald days of early last week.

Martin also reports that it has been a very hot day, as he sat at one of his many pit stops enjoying an ice cream and coke; he looked at a sign saying it was 45° but suspects that may not have been entirely correct.

Montoro, the first of the Southern Spanish towns I hit in Andalucia!

You will not be surprised to hear there were yet more bike chain problems – we are so bored with this but as we are trying to report in a fair way have to include the latest… It involves another farm mechanic (what is it with the little man and yokel types?) so in the interest of independent reporting we will plough on (no pun intended) with it.  Bucket man wanted to buy the farm mechanic’s wrench off him so he would have his very own “nobber tool” (remember them, we do) to sort out his chain problems.  This was agreed so Martin pedalled off with the wrench, or wrench set safely stowed in his bike bag.  Imagine his surprise when he found a bike shop (or more properly in Spanish, una tienda de la bicicleta) that was actually open.  In the shop was a garrulous Danish man who translated for Martin – into Spanish, not Danish – and he ended up buying a new bike chain for 32 Euros.  Now he really had decisions to make, should he throw away the wrench set so thoughtfully provided by the farm hand, should he throw away the original chain (please do, we are heartedly fed up with it) although he says there are still miles left in it, what effect on his progress would the extra weight have – the permutations are both complex and exceedingly tedious.

Mulling over this problem he pedalled on and found two comatose Americans lying under a tree moaning softly, “water, water”. The lady, who had, as they say in America, a big fanny,  and her man had cycled from Cordoba (of bull fame) and managed a puny 30kms before reaching their shady tree.  They had another 20kms to go to reach their hotel for the night so our little man helped them on their way by giving them not only all his water but his last two energy bars – what a hero!

What with this hold up, and the lengthy stop in the bike shop, Martin did not reach his hotel until 8.45pm.  He is truly knackered, not only this pedalling stuff, but he was up until 1.00am the night before,  busily sewing up his Assos shorts with his newly acquired sewing kit.  Plus -  he was furiously washing his clothes so he is fully prepared for the run in.  New chain, clean pants, what more can a pedaller ask for?

He has a few personal messages to pass on, namely, Mick, telling him to pack it in and fly home is not especially supportive or encouraging...  Reece, how is you always phone when he is pedalling furiously and does not have hands free whatever, and Johnny M (you know who you are) why are you so fixated on the state of his bottom?

So, in conclusion,  on hopefully  the penultimate day, he is good order, the bike is in tip top order, the chain is fixed (allegedly) so it should be an easy run in tomorrow – come back then to check it out.

Meanwhile back in Cropwell Bishop we celebrate Jo winning The Great British Bake Off and are left reeling by Mary-Anne's "revolting syllabub." We know how to live!