Day 3 - Chester to Southport

Day 3 of 'Hugh's Attempt To Grow A Beard', er, i mean 'Hugh and Catherine's Three Peaks Cycle'. And both are coming along nicely!

The day's 97km ride into Lancashire

After leaving our campsite at 10, we breakfasted by a roman amphitheatre in Chester and headed northwards towards the Mersey. Cheshire, depite being almost as far north as Sheffield, tries its hardest to seem like Hampshre with quaint villages covered in bunting and more badly-driven range rovers than the top gear car-park. Across the Mersey things felt distinctly more northern though, with unintelligible scouse accents and big, grey council estates the norm.

That's not to say that crossing the Mersey was an easy thing to do. The whole region was criss-crossed by motorways, train tracks, industrial estates and rivers - all of which are barriers to bikes. We eventually found a route onto the bridge, but quickly found ourselves in the middle of four lanes of traffic chaos, no bike lane in sight. Thankfully we survived the ordeal and enteted Merseyside.

Once out of the chaos of Widnes we found some nice country lanes and headed north. We stopped for lunch after a bit of a climb and could still see the hills and mountains of north wales that we left behind the day before.

Every day a touring cyclist burns about 3000 calories in the saddle, which all need to be replaced somehow. In the afternoon we decided, in true english style, that this was a hole only tea and scones could fill. Luckily the nearest pub supplied us with an afternoon feast fit for a cycling king.

The last 20km were flat, cloudy and open; almost like we were back in boring Norfolk. We crossed the third motorway of the day and entered Lancashire. After some confusion we found a campsite for the night just west of Preston. The campsite was run by two of the nicest people in the world. They took us in, put the kettle on and showed us the way to the nearest shop. Despite the lack of a shower block and high number of midges, how could we really say no to this lovely old couple? I do hope all northern people are this lovely, and its just us folk in the south who are such callous, cold-hearted bastards.

Stats:
Todays distance: 91km.
Average speed: 19.1km.
Total distance ridden: 216km.

Sunburn score: 4/10.
Midge count: 5/10.
Rain level: 1/10 (One shower all day!)

Beard index: 4/10 (getting there).

Dinner in the sun.