Possibly the hardest day. We remained dry but struggled into a headwind on the most diabolical road surfaces yet encountered, possibly equivalent to the unmade roads originally ridden over in 1885. Things looked bad, glances were exchanged.
Ahead of the pack, driving our van, flight officer Benney switched on ‘george’ the automatic pilot and clambered behind the seats to the dimly lit navigators table. He lit a pipe and removed the 1942 WOND (wind ordnance navigation director) from it’s leather satchel. It belonged to his father-in-law, pilot of ‘Dainty Danielle’ (G8080) the Lancaster famous for bombing a troll factory outside Copenhagen instead of the ball-bearing plant at Schweinfurt.
Paul assured us all that the device was re-calibrated after that unfortunate mishap, his father-in-law still insists that the Luftwaffe hid bombs in the trolls anyway. Paul aligned the badger cross-hairs, raised the tiny latex wind-sock held up a wetted finger and applied his slide-rule.
“I think the A704 over the A706″ came the calculation, using something called a ‘map’ (strange coloured lines printed on paper) and bowing to superior information, like Lemmings, we behaved. Paul had spotted a railway track paralell to the road and, noting how a train often takes the path of least resistance we gambled on flatness, besides, the wind would be to one side and it was shorter. The cunning plan was that much better than the sort supplied by Baldrick.
We made good time and struggled across the Forth Road Bridge (fig 1) fearing a mighty gust. Penny riders are high up, bridge railings are
much lower.
The ride being hard, I turned to DJ shuffle on my iPod for the first time on the trip. He didn’t let me down. The beats-per-minute seemed to mirror my pedal stroke like some Victorian spin class (without the annoying instructor). A 5 year old Jimpster album, Joan As Policewoman all cheered me on, and I found the urban south London desolation in the two magnificent Burial albums seemed to be so right for the
magnificent heather clad Tinto Hills.
In a hurry to make church on time (less the Lord be displeased) a brainless driver nearly unseated me at speed, she got out to remonstrate, I tried hard to run her down.
But missed.
Her God was on her side.
We passed a fat man riding a tandem on his own, the cycle was a 1960 Laca-Daisical.
