............ Lands end to John o'Groats cycle ride 2014 .........: Day 9, Monday 8th September 2014

Frodsham - Ribchester

Day 9 followed the same routine as every other morning, right up to the moment when checking his bike over Beaky found two broken spokes in his back wheel. The broken spokes were on the chain side, the cogs(cassette) has to be removed before you can remove the broken spokes, cassette off and two broken spokes removed the new spokes were inserted and tightened. The next issue was attempting to true the wheel without a jig, Andy put the wheel back in the frame spun it and used a screwdriver on the frame to see where adjustments were needed.

After all the excitement we were still ready to go at 9:15

Our ride for the day was 62 miles, as we got underway each time Beaky stopped peddling his rear cogs wouldn't freewheel and the slack chain gathered at the top, rubbing the tyre, after looking at the cassette and freewheel Andy and Beaky couldn't find anything wrong. Jo W searched the internet and found a cycle shop close to our route, we were on our way heading to a cycle shop in Frodsham to check Beaky's freewheel issue.

At a junction in the road Frodsham was signposted left but the Garmin told us to turn right so we pressed on following the signposts and ignoring the Garmin that was continually beeping try to tell us we we're no longer following the planned route. We arrived in Frodsham and following direction from Jo W's phone we stopped outside the Cycle shop, tried the door and it was locked. The sign on the door read opening hours Monday - Saturday 9 am - 5 pm just below the sign was a large yellow notice Closed Monday 8th.

Jo W had a look on the internet for the nearest alternative amazingly Frodsham had two bike shops within half a mile so we rode to the next one, thankfully as we approached we saw the shop door was open. Beaky removed the wheel and went inside.

Explaining they had removed the cassette and replaced two spokes asked if the gentleman had time to check why the freewheel wasn't working and if the wheel was true, the young man said they were lucky he was about to close the shop as he was going to watch the Tour of Britain as it was passing close by, but he had time to check the wheel. He removed the freewheel mech and it worked fine when he re fitted it it was stiff after a few moments of head scratching he saw the clear plastic disc that sits between the cassette and the wheel and it was rubbing on the cassette and stopping it turning freely, clipping it to different spokes left the freewheel spinning.

He fixed the wheel in a jig, gave it a spin and the wheel was pretty close with a twist to some of the old spokes the wheel was as good as new. He wished us well with our journey and we were on our way.

As we set off from Frodsham Andy looked at the Garmin to see how to get back on route and was very surprised to see it showing 270 miles to the destination, obviously a glitch. We have a backup Garmin on Jo T's bike just in case of such an error, when Andy looked at it it also showed 270 miles to destination, they spent several minutes trying to find the error to no avail and it was decided the only option was to enter the postcode of the camp into both garmins and let them navigate. As we set off we started we were greeted by crowds of people lining the roads, as we rode along we had ripples of applause and comments like "you don't look like Mark Cavendish" we realised we were riding along the route for the Tour of Britain, hoping to get through before they closed the road.

The downside soon became apparent, we found it difficult to plan our route because of the urban sprawl around Warrington, St Helens, Leigh, all the roads we travelled on were very busy A roads, very noisy and certainly not the pleasant quiet country lanes we had been used to....

as we approached Warrington the industrial sites increased with the volume of traffic

Wigan followed shortly, we were all surprised at the size of Wigan and the amount of

time it took us work our way through, very busy roads around the area.

one of the benefits of riding through industrial areas were the

interesting sculptures and art we came across

slowly the industrial estates and houses give way to wooded areas as you move out

onto the moors, the traffic is still fast but it feels better to be out in the countryside.

as we rode over the moors we left Cheshire and entered Lancashire The Red Rose County.

at the end of the moors we came across Darwen a pretty market town very similar to Brigg

little did any of us realise the pretty town Darwin becomes busier and busier as it grows into the very busy town of Blackburn

For those who remember Fred Dibnah below is the India Mill chimney Fred

repaired the chimney in 1991 and is famous for climbing the over hang.

India Mill

One of the best sculptures we found was this one of a spitfire below.

Art or Structure??????

This was the last photograph we took in Darwen from this point traffic started to build as school leaving time approached it kept building and turned into rush hour, no cycle lanes to speak of chewing on diesel fumes and dodging traffic all added to a stressful day.