DAY 4 - SHREWSBURY TO PRESTON - 100 MILES

Punctures: 0

Accidents: 0

Inches of rain: 2

It's goodbye to the weekend rides and down to the hardcore group of five doing the full monty. It's also a thank you and farewell to Himanshu (don't give up the day job!) and a big hello to our new driver for the next two days - Richard Jacklin (Craig's father in law).

The day started well and we were joined by a surprise new rider for the day - Billy from Bellshill doing the ride on his own and conveniently in need of a room and we had one spare. We did manage to get lost before we got out of Shrewsbury but after that it was plain sailing - the sun was shining, no monster climbs and a breeze on our backs. Making good progress we decided to stop for lunch in sunny Cheshire - sitting in the beer garden lapping up the sun - what could possibly go wrong. We even attracted a donation for the lady in the B + B and one from an old couple at the side of the road.

Our good fortune could not last for ever and things started take a turn for the worse - Cheshire led us in to Greater Manchester - Leigh to be precise - and we rode in to torrential rain and flash floods. We were faced with the dilemma of staying out of the rain and waiting for it to stop or just going for it and try and get to the sunshine in the distance. We decided there was only one choice - we had to go for it. So we pushed on in to the pouring rain, getting soaked to the skin in the process. It was lowest point of the trip so far :-(

As for Leigh - we won't be back - it's true what they say 'it's grim up north". Added to that Nigel's lack of map reading skills combined with his supreme confidence meant that we seen a lot more of Leigh than we needed to - faffing again! Oh, and if one more child had shouted, "are you wet?" I would have killed him/her.

Things weren't all bad and as we pulled up the hill past Bolton Wanderer's Reebok stadium we were back in the sun again. All we had left was a long straight road to Preston and the wind on our backs. Brilliant!

Homing fever took over at this point and the race to catch the front group of Garrie and Hannah began - it was organised chaos. Craig forgot his team player advice, Nigel forgot about road safety and Crawford forgot to skip through red lights. Amazingly the group met up about 100 yards from the hotel - a perfect end to the day - a breeze in comparison to the nightmare slog to Shrewsbury. 100 miles exactly!

Tomorrow: Preston to Carlisle - 94 miles