Day 7 - The final day!

Well, now we've had a (short) night to recover, here's the account of the final day. We should first mention the very fine hospitality of Paul and Mary Drummond in our B&B in Tenbury Wells - in addition to the kindness shown to us yesterday and the hosepipe for washing down the bikes, they are extremely cyclist-friendly and we cannot recommend their B&B highly enough. Many thanks to you both again!

Middle Bruv Martin had set a tough target of 8.30 for our departure time, in order to pick up Bruvette Naomi from Yate at 13.00, yet still have time for a coffee stop. Needless to say we missed this and left a bit before 9 so we were threatened with no coffee unless we made up the time on the road. Surprisingly the wind seemed to have veered West overnight and we enjoyed a following wind on the rolling roads to Bromyard and Ledbury (Kiwi Bruv decided his water bottle was more photogenic than the Bruvs - see photo - but then decided to leave one behind for a second time!). In fact things were going so well we arrived in Newent 15 minutes ahead of schedule so were allowed a quick stop at one of Martin's favourite cafes - the Good News Cafe. Respect to Alan Millard from the Westbury Wheelers who had left at 7am to ride out to meet us (covering 150 miles for the day), and joined us at Newent.

Laden with cake we again flew from Newent with the following wind to Gloucester where things got suddenly harder as we turned into the strengthening headwind again. The next few miles down the A38 were really quite hard work but we managed to avoid the very heavy rain as we rode from dry roads to rivers of water and bac to dry roads again! Due to the wind and a calculation error on Martin's behalf, we didn't arrive into Yate station until 2pm (sorry Naomi - hope the trains were interesting...).

Lunch followed soon afterwards at The Bell in Chipping Sodbury where Georgie and Keeley behind the bar were just awesome! In fact this just mirrored people's kindness and generosity over the whole trip with many people we met donating to the two charities we are supporting (people in B&Bs, cafes, pubs, ferries, ...) - we even came back to a B&B one evening and found a guest had rolled up a fiver and left it in the keyhole of our door!

In the warm afternoon sun a new plan was hatched - the group would ride together across the edge of the Cotswolds taking in some small villages (with pubs...). A tortoise group would ride tempo with a few 'hares' leap-frogging them to drum up support at a couple of hostelries (yeah right, Bruvs, that almost sounds convincing!). So the pace for the afternoon was very relaxed, including an ice cream stop, and we did receive a few donations during the afternoon, so definitely worthwhile. The Westbury Wheelers club captain Simon Hurd joined us for the afternoon - many thanks for all your support over the week Simon - it was brilliant.

All too soon the end of the ride was in sight (as the Bruvs struggled to catch Bruvette Naomi up the final hill to Upton Scudamore), and the welcoming party cheering from the bridge over the road with banners welcoming us home. We weren't quite finished as a quick dash to Warminster was needed for a final photo, before it was 3km back to upton Scudamore for some well-earned refreshment.

So, the statistics for the week are 652 miles (1049km), 39 hours 35 minutes riding time, 16.5 mph average, about 1 Everest of vertical climbing, 2 mechanical problems (both kiwi bruv!), some strange noises from little Bruvs freewheel, NO VISITS FROM THE PUNCTURE FAIRY (we can say that now we've finished), 10 kg of sausages consumed, 101 pints of beer drunk, 15 bottles of wine! 20 hours of sun, 6 hours of rain, 2 dams, 3 bridges, 4 ferries and 4 very tired Tillin bruvs!!!!!