The NY Chronicles

Thought be good to give you a quick update of some of the goings on and photos of our time in NY....

After our night out with the girls on Monday night Tuesday was a complete write off where the boys spent the day in bed feeling awful and hurting all over.


Tom did however manage to fight the various pains he was feeling in order so that he could spend all day on facebook catching up on some e-flirting with his various fractions, some things never change. We went out for a dirty lunch of Fat Burger with the girls before they headed back to blighty later that afternoon. More sleeping followed until we went out in the evening with our hosts to a typical american pub where we ate some ribs and other stuff and had a couple of beers before heading back to the apartment for more sleep.

On Wednesday we managed to pluck up some strength to drag ourselves over to Manhatten to do a bit of sight seeing which consisted of a bit of cycling around Manhatten, bus touring and shopping in Soho as we had no clothes of any quality that could be donned on a night out in NYC.

Great architecture in NYC, old against new.


More great shots from the top of the bus.


Wednesday night saw us go for a tour around China town for some authentic food. We ate these soup dumplings which were dumplings full of soup and then had some chinese bubble tea which is cold tea with tapoica, our new favourite tipple. After getting fed we were shown the wonders of an arcade in china town. Here we watched some mental moves on dance dance revolution by some stacked black dude, some chinese kids and an old lady. It was such a special and surreal experience that Jack took it upon himself to film the whole occasion so you guys can enjoy it time and time again.

Thursday saw us doing some more sight seeing and photo taking around NYC. We also all bought shoes from the most reputable store in NYC, Topman. The day also saw us wander back to china town to look for rubbish souveniers, get a free massage and most importantly get somemore bubble tea.

Borat with an M&M.

Jack and Borat showing where there allegiences lie.


More china town hair gel based fun.


In the evening we had the most anticipated moment of the trip so far, our debuts on internet radio station DTFRadio.com. Ian, Phoebe and Tors joined us in the studio where we met DJ Supreme, Bad Ass Brunette (aka Rosie) and Saint. Here we had a general chit chat about our trip and filled them in on topics such as Bens impending engagement, our worst moments and whether or not we would be bothered if one of our friends dated our mum/dad. The guys at DTFRadio recorded the show for us and put it here where we feature around 40mins in for about an hour or so http://www.zshare.net/audio/647953966f2c4b9e/ have a listen, its good.

Us in the studio doing our thing.


After this we headed off for a night out but sadly Ian and Phoebe had to go home to do some work whilst we went out to get drunk again. First stop was a place called Webster Hall which had three floors of different music, all hip-hop. We decided to ditch this place after a couple of beers as it wasn't the best. Tors informed us of a hip and happening place called Lit which we headed to next. Sadly Tors wasn't as good a guide as the fantastic Phoebe Chen so we got lost for a bit before finally finding it by asking a bloke if he knew where Lit was only for him to tell us that we were at Lit. A bit of drunken dancing ensued under some great UV lights which made Tom look like an asian Robert Kilroy Silk. Nothing much happened for the rest of the night expect for Jack meeting some complete american idiot who kept chatting about Swansea City football club, not great. We all begain to start falling asleep so we headed off home leaving Tors with her mates to dance the night away.

Just one more night left in NY where we plan to go and get drunk again before travelling straight to the airport, trying to blag first class and then passing out on the plane.

Last thing to say really is a big thanks to everyone that we met and helped us out along the way, you made our lives a lot easier and a lot less boring! Cheers again and until next time.......

Assorted photos from the trip

Here are a couple of other assorted interesting (not corn) photos from the trip.......

Bens dinner one evening


One of Bens spectacular cycling tops


Jack taking a nap in a chinese restaurant


Nebraska in the rain


Eating pizza at altitude


Ben and Jack in action


Great road name


Ben having fun in a supermarket


More fun from Ben, a perfect photo for the next edition of www.matthewtremlett.com


Mile marker mischeif


Entering Wyoming with Jeremy


Jack working out

Monday - Start Spreading the News

Ladies, Gentlemen and Blog Fans its the installment of the final cycling day of our Ultra Endurance Charity Adventure..

The day started in the Comfort Inn Motel in Easton at about 6 where a light 'continental' breakfast was consumed by Ben and Jack while Tom frigged about with his brakes after tightening the spokes on his back wheel resulted in it spinning so out of shape the brakes were engaged at all times. We got out on the road after sorting the route out and worked out we were roughly 70 miles from New York. We cracked on, passing through into New Jersey after about 20 mins. We cycled on towards Long Valley where we encountered a mountain or two which made interesting cycling as the bikes creaked and clicked their way to the top of each incline. It wouldnt be another day of cycling without the obligatory 15 minute puncture stop which Ben delivered right on cue at the top of a hill.

We coasted down to Long Valley, losing all the hard climbing work we'd put in where a bike shop appeared where Tom could get his back wheel repaired yet again. While the mechanic got to work we wondered off down the road to the gas station for a hot dog and milk breakfast. We returned and the mechanic gave us his best british accent and procalimed that the wheel was 'pretty knackered' when it came in. That quote let us know we were getting closer to home.

We hit the pedals and a few more mountains for another 15-20 miles before stopping in Morristown where Tom rang home for the first time since leaving for Heathrow while Jack and Ben checked the map and directions. We got to East Orange, NJ and knew we were about 12 miles from the water so we stopped and got some greasy burgers from New York Fried Chicken, basically a kebab house. Jack conversed with a local cyclist about the ride we were on and he wanted to get pannier bikes like Jacks aswell as explaining how he turned his seat round the opposite way so his nuts didnt hurt while he was riding. We left with that great advice and he wa happy with a link to Wiggle where we got our pannier bags.

We cycled on with the kebab shop energy and we got into Newark which was interesting to cycle through with some cultured neighbourhoods and no spacee to cycle in before working out how to get over to Jersey City where we could get the ferry. We then embarked on the scariest part of our journey so far, taking the Truck Route 1/9 bridge over the water to Jersey. A couple of semis were practically grazing our pannier bags while we were cycling over. We got over the bridges and had a beer while we waited for the water taxi to take us over to New York City (pictured.)

We got off the boat in Manhattan and cycled up the West Street cycle highway across to Canal Street, Up Hudson and onto 8th Avenue all the way upto 48th street where we hung a right onto Broadway where Times Square appeared and our epic journey came to an end at 17.54. We stood in the middle of times square where we were met by Ian & Pheobe and Phil & Clerge. Hugs all round aswell as a few well made signs of congratulations and a change of shirts to boot. We cracked out the (non-alcoholic) champagne to toast our achievement in public without breaking the law and stood around chatting while chinese tourists took pictures of us.

After we'd decided Times Square was good we walked to the ferry station to get back over to Jersey City where we'd been put up for our stay by Ian and the cupcake machine Pheobe Chen. Ian suggested taking the ferry on 33rd st so we didnt have to go to the bottom of Manhattan again but somewhere along the way he got his wires crossed and we ended up walking for over 2 hours before we go to the train station to get to their appartment.

We got to the apparentment and the doorman stored our bikes away aswell as offering us to go on an internet radio station he worked at on Wednesday night which we agreed to.
We got in and everyone agreed that we wreaked and all of our belongings were put in a big basket ready to be washed. We got showered and borrowed Ians jeans with our new NY shirts and got ready to hit the town. We went to BCD Tofu on 33rd and 6th in Korea town, a koreon restraunt where we were fed an enourmous amount of different kinds of foods and plum wine and we also met up with Tom's sisters friend whos interning at Vice magazine, Miss Victoria 'Tors' Beedles and our friends from Uni Mair Hewlitt-Packard and her celtic other half Shane, and Mairs friend whos name I cant remember. We moved onto Thunder Jacksons on Sullivan and Bleeker where we got on the beer pitchers and the barmaids and their casual self defence teacher took us to Pinch's an Irish place down the road. Much more beers later we called it a night and Phil hearded us home via the Subway. The boys had all hit the bricks (below) and turned in at 4.20am for some much needed sleep.


No more cycling, but the adventure isnt over yet. Until next time blog fans. Look after yourselves, and each other.

Monday - Done

Got into Times Square at 6pm after a comical day of biking. Showered and changed and now off for some beer. Full post and photos to follow tommorow.

Sunday - New York, New York

Just a quick one..

Night in tent was predictably sweaty and sticky which led to a rubbish nights sleep for us all. Lots of hills as usual in the morning run although the route we followed did seem to avoid a fair few of the massive mountains. Popped into an italian restaurant for some breakfast before more huge hills. Had dinner in an expensive italian restaurant after going over another mountain called Blue Mountain (it wasn't Blue!).

The final couple of miles of the day saw Ben get another puncture but he thoughtfully got it outside a gas station which was playing music so the fixing was done in a pleasant environment. We finished the night in Easton in a motel and had another McD's (food of champions) ready for our last run in tommorow.

Update on the bikes....they are all falling apart. All of us have loads of noise coming from our bikes and find a new clunk or tick every couple of miles. Tom snapped another spoke and now his back wheel is massively out and is wobbling quite bad. Hopefully going to hit a bike shop pretty early to sort any urgent problems.

So just 70 miles or so and one mountain to go.

Friday and Saturday - Hill mania in Pennsylvania

Hello boys and girls if blog world, here's a quick update on our recent mishaps....

Our Pennsylvania experience started well with us spotting some Amish people with horse and carts and also having a good downhill section to the morning. This was soon to end when the big hills began to kick in. The climbing however wasn't so bad as the scenery was pretty nice especially the massive low clouds that sat atop of all the hills. A generally good cycling morning was quickly interrupted by massive downpour from said clouds. We all got pretty soaked as we have realised that our rain coats are useless as althugj they stop the rain they make you sweat and so make you just as wet as the rain does. After a big scary downhill section (all of our brakes are useless) we arrived at the allgheny river (looked like something out of jurassic park) where we stopped for breakfast. The blueberry pancakes here were pretty special and lead Ben to declare that this was his best breakfast yet.

The climb away from the river was pretty steep but was made quite comical by a dog that waddled after Ben the whole way and then took a poo in someones garden before waddling home. A few more dogs chased us that afternoon with none suceeding in catching or biting us, phew. More hills and more scenery later we stopped for lunch in Brooksville where we went for another subway which we think is the healthiest meal choice in America and apparently some used-to-be-fat bloke called Jared agrees with us.

After lunch we had more hills before hitting what seemed to be a mountain mainly because it had a sign showing it's elevation (barely 2000ft, small change for us charity athletes). After a bit if downhill we began to climb again. We stopped at a gas station to evaluate our options and where told by the locals that it would be best to Carey on cycling to get to the bigger town of Clearfield. Getting there however would involve climbing up another mountain and a further fifteen or so miles on top of the 100 we had already amassed.


As we had no option we went for it. In the heat if the moment Jack forgot what country he was in and cycled off onto the left side of the road, again. After wondering why no vlcars were passing him and hearing Spokey shouting he quickly came to his senses and cycled over to the right. The climb to the top was long but quick and about seven miles in we reached the summit and after another scary downhill section we reached Clearfield.

Here we went for the motel option as it was getting dark and Americans are useless at directions and have no local knowledge of the area they live in. The motel of choice was a Days Inn and we also picked up some of the Colonels fried chicken for dinner.

In the morning we awoke to find Jack had a puncture. He set about fixing this and his brakes while Ben and Spokey went to breakfast. Half an hour later he was still fighting with the brakes as his back wheel had developed some sort of wobble, a budge job later obln the brakes (now useless) we headed off. Again more hilly miles where nothing apart from the odd mountain happened. We arrived in a place called State College which seemed to be a whole city setup to house Penn State University.....a city for a unubersity, it was our dream home. Bendeclared that this area would be flat as they'd never build a university in a hilly area, he wad wrong but as with all of his ridiculous claims he tried to pull it back into contention by stating it wasn't that hilly. We popped into a bike shop to pick up some ammo for Ben (inner rubes) and Spokey (spokes). Whilst Spokeys bike was getting fixed we went fir breakfast at Arbys.

The bikes were dixed pretty quick although Jack neglected to put his in to get fixed as the bike shop looked expensive (it was ) and he reckoned his bike would hold out until Times Square. The road away from the shop was less hilly than the mornings cycle as it followed a valley. We took this highway all the way to our next food stop in the barn yard restaurant and banquet facility. Here we had a good feed and chat with the people working there, one of which had cycled to Muchigan whilst dragging his kid along in a trailer.

The final few miles of the day to Lewisburg were pretty boring until Ben decided to go and get another puncture. Spokey and Ben fixed this one alone as Jack was at the top if the next hill and refusing to cycle back. Puncture karma got is own back on him by giving him a puncture two miles from our destination. We pulled into a school car park where jack pumped the tyre back up enough to try and get to the campsite which Spokey was asking an actual marching band (geeks) for. This quick fix didn't work and Jack ended up walking there while the others cycled in.

The campsite was called the Yogi Bear Shangri La and was more of a holiday resort for kids, there goes the early night plan! The tent is also starting to smell bad and is a bit sticky inside from all the sweat!

So Ben usually does his five facts here but him and Spokey are off playing bingo or frolicking in the soft play area so I'll give you a couple....

1. You're never at the top of a hill/section of mountain until you see a radio mast
2. Amish men are not allowed the shave after they get married
3. If you see a sign for a casino in Nevada expect a handful of slot machines and a shit buffet
4. Pennsylvania smells like Wrexham
5. Amish people only pay road tax and real estate tax

Oh and in other news we are only 200miles from NYand should arrive there on Monday evening bat any disasters....

Thursday - Yeah buddy

A blog entry from Ben


Fans, friends and family, todays cycle has been according to Jack his best yet, with his best breakfast so far, the start of Pennsylvania being great and then being left stunned by the generiousity of a random we met in a quiet restaurant/motel. This blog wil do it's best to express and explain his excitement but unfortunately not much happened.

After a disturbed night sleep due to a massive storm, we hit the road and had a relatively quiet morning with the only drama coming from Jack and Tom bickering with each other and having to go on a 3 mile diversion (or detour as its called over here) because of 50 metres of roadworks. Arriving at Wadsworth, Matt spotted an advert in a local bank stating that it was 493 miles from Wall Street. Sensing a photo opp, Matt and Tom went in and were lucky enough to have a photo taken with the bank mascot. Breakfast was in a small restaurant where Jack ordered a small feast of oatmeal (his new favourite), sausages, toast and fries (which turned out to be hashbrowns). After breakfast we cycled into the city of Akron which was a bit dodgy and cycled past a policeman wizzing along on a segway. Tom asked if he wanted to swop and he replied that he would love to as his bike was broken. Seeing as there would be no room for our bags we had to sadly decline. Akron then turned very hilly and Jack decided to use the excuse of looking at the maps to have a cheeky break.

For lunch we had our first Dairy Queen which turned out to be very nice. We asked how far it was to the state border and were told that it was an hour away in a car which was unhelpful for us. The lady behind the counter was impressed by our cycle and we had to pose for photos with our bikes. We got chatting to a trucker whose catchphase was "yeah buddy", which he seemed to say at the end of every sentence. He had been all over the country and said that the rest of the day would be flat for us, something that turned out to be a lie. He also offered us a lift which we obviously had to turn down and warned us about the black bears we might encounter in Pennsylvania.

Pedalling on we went over some big hills and then arrived into Youngstown which again seemed to a bit dodgy and we didn't really fancy sticking around for any longer than we had to. We were told at a service station that the whole area had been issued with a severe storm warning and so quickly got our rain jackets on. We soon took them off when the rain didn't materialise and we were more wet from the sweat caused by them than we would have been if it was raining. Shortly after we arrived at the state border which rather than a sign, had a banner across the road.

The first few miles of Pennsylvania were great fun with fast downhill sections however we soon paid for it with more massive hills. We were distracted from the pain however by seeing several horse and carts going past driven by members of the local Amish community. Feeling tired we stopped at a restaurant and got chatting to some of the people in there. One guy had cycled 100 miles in 6 hours before and after finding out the price of the adjoining hotel, very generously agreed to pay for a room for us for the night! We were astonished by this and so thank you Ralph very much! Tom got talking to a couple next to us and we were shocked to learn that Youngstown has the highest murder rate in the country in the summer and we were lucky not to have had our bikes stolen at gunpoint. We also learnt about the local Amish commmunity and how even though they reject all modern inventions including rubber, they are willing to use other peoples phones and cars, get free school buses to their Amish school and travel all around the country to get cheap healthcare. They then told us about one of them that they met whilst he was on his 2 years out that they get when they are 18, who got a job at a trucking company and earnt so much money and enjoyed drinking so much that he decided not to go back and married an English girl instead!

It was fortunate that we did decide to stay at the motel as when we were eating, a massive storm came through and we would probably have been blown off our bikes! Not fun. Our room was very old fashioned with a shower that was more of a hose than a shower. Jack however was very excited as it had the same design as Josh's and burst out of the shower to inform us of this. The double bed was very cosy for Matt and Tom and whilst watching one of our favourite programme over here, "Married With Children", Tom said that we would be where it is based in a few days. Matt replied he hoped not as it would mean that we would be in Chicago!

Tomorrow promises to be a day of hills, hills and mountains but as Jack has stated that he is becoming a better cyclist each day we should be flying up them.

And now for Matt's daily dose of 5 facts/observations about the US:

1. When people say the next part of the route is flat, they really mean that it is hilly. And when they say scenic or "a nice ride", it means that it is really hilly

2. People like to give distances between places in terms of hours which is not much help when you are cycling there

3. When a place is called a city, it doesn't mean that it is actually a city. It is in fact more likely to consist of just a service station

4. Apparently (according to a geography student) you can get green clouds in America which means hail. We haven't seen any though so are yet to be convinced

5. When Jack hits a rock because he isn't watching where he is going and falls off, it is in fact Tom's fault because he was cycling too close to him

Wednesday - Papa don't preach

Great start to the day with a good breakfast courtesy of the wingate hotel. After eating that we cycled thru downtown Lima and back out to the sticks again. Met anothr cyclist on the way who was out for his morning cycling and was moving quick, he told of his concern for our bums then headed off in another direction.

We had breakfast in upper Sandusky at a little cafe. Here they tried to understand what we were doing and tried to offer directions, directions which infact were for the long way round so we ignored them. One lady was also bemused by the town we were heading to next and was convinced it didn't exist even thou a guy in the cafe had lived there and I showed her it on the map.

Nothing much happened until we arrived in buchryus were we got shouted at by a preacher whilst at some traffic lights. We laughed and cycled on but then realised we needed directions so jack offered to go and speak to the shouty man. After a ten minute argument about the bible and harry potter jack informed the guy that all he wanted was directions. The bearded sunglasses wearing preacher pointed us in the right direction and we were off.

After a series of long hills we stopped again this time for a subway and to pick up somesupplies for dinner. Spokey and ben opted for meatballs in a tin whereas jack went for salmon and peaches. After more ip and downhill we stopped for a food break as tom was low on sugar and had the shakes, here ben informed us that he thought he had picked up another puncture. Great. We cycled on regardless and found the road that lead to the campsite which was, according to a local, a mile long. Ben opted to walk this mile while spokey and jack went to setup the tent. It turned out to be a lot further than a mile leaving ben a long walk with a busted bike.

The country stage campground was ok but the showers were a bit messy and encased in insects which wasn't so fun. After setting up the tent we cowered from the impending storm whilst eating our tinned dinners and trying to figureout how we would get to new york. The storm raged through the night but luckily the tent held up and we all stayed dry.

Now for bens five facts/observations about the USA.....

1. In a typical day you will see more dead animals than people walking around
2. Ice is not served as an accompanyment to your drink, your drink is served as an accompanyment to your ice
3. Each town has a sign listing it's claim to fame, my favourite was Newton, Indiana where they informed us that they had been the 2005 National Soil Judging Champions
4. All the young people of the US seem to have disappeared as we have only seen a couple since being here
5. Stating that you haven't had a puncture for 8 days will result in you being the victim of 5 punctures in 3 days

Tuesday - Deja vu

Early start this morning with us hitting the road just after 5am. It was pretty dark and slippery so the first few miles were slow and cautious. We also got chased by a lot if dogs which wasn't fun especially when we couldn't see them and could only hear the barking. Our first stop was after thirty odd miles at another mcds for some breakfast, healthy diet doing us well. We watched some great comedy that is fix news, some stupid story about a dog finding love, that was news and it went on forever.

The second phase of our day was going pretty quick until Ben decided to spice things up by getting another puncture. Spokey (aka Tom) rode off to get jack back so they could laugh at Ben and more importantly fix the puncture. Ben wasn't happy that his new tyres with flat protection system didn't work as advertised. The cause of the puncture was determined to be a big chunk of porcelain which made a nice hole in the tyre. We set back off down the road with spokey following behind ben on puncture watch. He wasn't wasted as a few miles later he noticed bens tyre was deflated slightly indicating that he had yet again got his second puncture of the day. After fixing this one we finished the second section by arriving into wilshire, Ohio for lunch at beckys restaurant.

The last thirty miles of the day were pretty hot and it slowed us down a bit but we arrived at our final stop in Lima around 5. Unsure about where to stay we popped into the silk and lace shop florals which a lovely lady called Joyce owned. After explaining our predicament she gave us details of a motel that would possibly sort us out with a discounted room. The walgrave hotel sorted us out with a free room which was pretty nice of them and it was by far the best hotel we had stayed in on the trip so far. After some quick food at an old skool burger place we set about planning the remainder of the route and have just 613 miles left so should finish on Monday or tuesday next week depending on how tits up things go over the next few days.

In other news Ben has promises to start his own section of the blog where he will share some of the facts he has learnt about America over the past month. The red hot feature was meant to start tonight but Ben was a bit preoccupied with fixing his inner tubes....watch this space!

Monday - Hit the Road, Jack.

Good Morning, Good Afternoon or Good Night Blog Fans we've had a bit of an eventfull day so I'll try to fit everything in the short amount of time I've got to type this..

We were up bright and early and on the road by 6 (we'd already put our clocks forward before we hit the state (and date) line so we didnt lose an hours cycling in the middle of the day so it was actually 5am leaving Watseka to go to our first stop - Wolcott. We passed through Kentland, IN which we were supposed to make it to last night but the idiot gas station worker told us there was no campsites or motels only to find a there were a few motels we could have tayed in, git. We arrived for breakfast (after 35 miles) in good time at the Wolcott Theatre Cafe where we were questioned about our ride by the owners who then went on to buy us breakfast which was very much appreciated, cheers guys if you are joing the blog fan fraternity.

We pushed on after stocking up on cereal bars in the BP garage opposite the cafe and rode a further 35 miles ish towards Logansport, IN. We stopped in Monticello on the way through for a photo oppotunity on a massive chair at the side of the road and took the opportunity to get some fruit and an inner tube for Ben 'Punctures' Tremlett.

This proved to be a wise option for the reigning punture league participant as no more than 2 miles out of Monticello he went and got yet another puncture to take him onto 11 punctures. A truly outstanding example of foresight and how not to avoid roadside debris while touring across the states. You'd think by this point Tom and Jack were in no doubt who wears the cycling breakdown trousers in our ultra endurance charity hareem, but no. Unhappy with his current tally less than half a mile later he asserted his aplha-puncture dominance on the rest of the group by severing the new inner tube he'd bought less than 20 minutes earlier, a truly cowering display of puncturing skill. However it should be known that blame for this one was left at Jacks feet as Jack forgot to remove the debris (a staple) from the tyre from the previous incident. Should this puncture point be given to Ben or Jack or maybe half each - leave your comments blog fans.

So after this we soldiered on in good time (about 16mph) to Logansport where there we no bike shops for Ben to stock up on Ammo but there was some places to eat and we chose Arby's where they swap burgers for Roast Ham in a bun with fries and a drink. An intersting cusine model. We got going again after 45 minutes of discussing different slogans we could put shirts for our new t-shirts business such as "What Would Moo Do?" We have to get creative with conversation, some other previous ways to pass the time have included what fancy dress themes our funerals would be, such as hawiian, replacing the organ in the chapel of rest with a calypo band.

We cycled about 6 miles out of Logan sport when we met a more serious concern. While cycling along, (ludicrously) keeping his eyes on the road Jack cycled straight into a large road coloured rock which was in the hard shoulder. He came straight off and over the bike with Tom following into the back of him and commando rolling over the wreck in front of him. Jack lay on the ground with his arms over his face and groaned in pain while Ben caught up and Tom brushed himself off and pulled Jacks bike from the ground to asses the damage of the bike and then Jack. The bikes front wheel was bent and the rear mudguard and pannier rack were also bent. Jacks knee was bleeding and swelling up and his hands and arms were grazed. Jack laid on the ground while Ben and Tom attempted to sort the bike out but it was apparent we could be in trouble. Jack tended his own wounds as a Coca-Cola rep stopped and asked if we needed a medic, Jack gave the standard british answer "Im alright mate cheers" and after giving him all of the details of our ride so far he left. 5 minutes later a guy pulls over and jumps out of his red SUV and claimed "boys its your lucky day" which sounded ominous. The guy was a local rider and let us know he knew a good bike shop in the next town (which we would never have found) and went bike home to get his bike rack for his car to take Jack there while Ben and Tom rode there. The town is called Peru. We got to the bike shop where we stayed for about 1.5 hours while Jack had his fron tyre bent bike into line (trued to you bikers) and Ben finally got new tyres and even more ammo. Tom had yet more broken spokes repaired in the rear wheel which earned him the new nickname 'Spokie'. Cheers to everyone at Break Away bike shop for their help and adding the names Tom Powell, Ben Tremlett and Jack Lloyd to the '2000 Mile Club' on their wall. When we hit New York we'll be ringing so you can stick us on the 3000 mile club.

With Jacks knee bent and most of the day gone we went to a local motel to call an end to the day at just over 80 miles. Delivered pizza, a bath and an early night. Big miles tomorrow blog fans.

Until next time.

Tom.

Sunday - Race against the rain

It was pretty hard getting up this morning and we were late on the road. The morning cycling session was pretty boring except for the massive climb out of preoria. We stopped for a standard mcds breakfast, the food of champions. While we were inside the weather started to turn a bit shit and it got pretty dark and humid quickly.

After being on the road for a bit after breakfast jack heard a weird whining coming from behind him so he turned around to find ben complaining about getting another puncture, his ninth in total but the first in his front tyre. Jack andben set to work on the now pretty bald wheel whilst tom cycled on into the distance. We were a bit disappointed with the passing Americans as no one stopped or even gave us a cheeky beep of encouragement, horrible people if you ask me.

Next stop was in the quite frankly shitty town of Chatsworth where nothing was open and the women from the closed cafe didn't even give us the right directions to get out of there! On the plus side however there were a lot of comical posters about gun control, silly americans. We stopped for lunch in a gas station down the road and had to settle for some microwaved rubbish wedges and sandwiches. Whilst we were here all hell broke loose with the weather with some great winds and rain. We sat on the floor of the shop eating our food and chatting to the bloke behind the counter while the storm passed by. The bloke had some sort of disease from smoking but still sold them and smoked, quite frankly an idiot, he did say he wanted to do some cycling but couldn't because of health, we showed no sympathy.

After the storm calmed down the man asked up to move on as we were sitting in front of the donut area and possibly blocking fat people from getting there fill. After double checking the directions we rolled out and had a pretty quick cycle to the next town due to some great tailwinds from the storm. We stopped here for a snack and to pick up a map of indiana when the weather started to go to shit again. We quickly jumped on our bikes and pedalled as hard as we could to get just ahead of the storm and not soaked.

The final stop for the night was in Watseka as it actually had stuff in it. After a quick mexican we got back on our bikes to find a motel. Jack saw that all the birds were diving into the trees and quickly deduced rain was coming. Rain macs donned we rode thru the rain to the overpriced Super8 motel. Here tom had a bath and we decides to lose an he ahead of time before we crossed our final timezone in Indiana tomo.

In response to chris's comment the level of bankability seen so far has been substantially lower than expected although it does seem to be improving the further east we venture.

Saturday - Illiniosing

The day started by leaving JJs Camping  in Mount Pleasant, IA at 6 where we stocked up on cereal bars after making a much needed trip to the ATM in a local garage. We churned through 25 miles into the wind to Burlington where we had a great breakfast at Perkins restaurant. Following this we got ready to set off when Ben took off his fleece to reveal a new cycling jersey. This was big news. It has green and yellow hoops on the bottom half and a royal blue top, sporting a custom motif with the words "Bike Bognor" printed across the chest and back. A complete bargain at £4 delivered from eBay. 

Four miles later saw us crossing the Mississipi river and straight into our seventh state of our journey, Illinois. We enjoyed the view of the river and carried on towards Roseville, IL 35 miles away. We arrived about 1 and ate at the local bowling alley/cafe hybrid. A local place for local people that included an Amish man and his Amish son who were dressed identically in elastic denim dungarees and a straw hat and a group of old lunchers who all held hands and prayed for a few minutes before eating their burgers. 

We rolled out of town to start another 35 miles to Farmington IL. Nothing really major to report other than there's a lot of corn in the mid west. We got to Farmington and pulled into Scapecchi's Supper Club where we got fed again and spent the time there talking to Jene and Kris, the couple that owned it. We asked the best route to take through Peoria our next destination and they helped us out, aswell as offering us a gun as we'd be going through the ghetto. Lovely stuff.

So we hit the road for our final stint of the day, 28 more miles. We were making good time and had stopped for a cereal bar break at 7pm with about 8 miles left to go. Then followed another trip first. With thanks to a 3 inch nail Tom entered the puncture league fray in sensational style as Jack and Ben cycled off in the distance. It was 2 miles down the road when a motorcyclist Tom had flagged down gave them the news they'd have to turn around with the tyre levers to change inner tube number 15 of the trip. Inbetween a family on their way to eat out gave Tom a lift to where Jack and Ben where and offered to let us use the equipment in his shop to change the tyre. Tim Menefee and his wife and daughter offered to eat with them but we had to get on and make it to the end of our 125 mile day in East Peoria so we declined gratefully and changed the tyre as quick as possible 

We cycled through downtown Peoria very quickly and checked into Motel6 to hit the sack after a long day after cycling around some dodgy areas in the dark, good times.

106 miles planned for tomorrow, keep reading for more frolicks blog fans.

Friday afternoon - Not the end of the world

We went back to ajs bike shop to find our bikes all fixed in, here's the list of repairs....

Jack - new front brake calipers, gear tune up, new chain

Tom - new chain, new spokes, lubes up, gears tuned, brakes sorted, tyres swapped

Ben - whole new drive train and crank shaft

so hopefully that will get us thru the last thousand miles. tom also got somemore cream for his bum aptly named 'assmaster'. Also a big thanks to the guys in the bike shop for sorting us out so quickly, much appreciated!

Back onto hway 34 we slowly finished off the last twenty or so miles passing some great anti abortion, our favourite being 'smile, your mum chose life', great! We found j and js campsite which was our final stop for a night and it was quite a rustic place to say the least! It's best feature was the wall of unused hats in the rec room.

After pitching our tent we headed across the road to a sports bar for some food. We sat there in a bar on a Friday night with our glasses of coke, torches in our pockets and maps strewn out on the table while live music was playing in the background and everyone bar us was getting drunk.....living the dream ha!

Less than a thousand miles left though.....

Friday morning - Something happened

We got on the road quite early again to avoid the inevitable hot sweaty Iowa afternoons that we have grown to love and had quite a good ride going through more welsh countryside type stuff and over some more rolling hills until we stopped for breakfast. Here again Jack walked right into the language barrier getting orange juice when he asked for water, this happened twice, bloody racist americans!

We got chatting with the locals in the cafe and they told us all about the RAGBRAI (look it up) that took place the week before. Sounds pretty cool and would have been good to have got involved buts its happened, its over, so stop telling us about it. Seriously every single person tells the same story, its as if they issued some sort of massive press release and the race didn't even happen......a conspiracy maybe? Anyway this same bloke went on to tell us the usual rubbish that the rest of Iowa would be pretty flat but thankfully later in the conversation decided to retract his original statement and tell it that it was in fact hills for the next 20 miles or so and then 'should' even out a bit. Only him and the guy from the Artic Circle have so far been spot on with the terrain advice, cheers.

We decided to try and reach Fairfield before our next food stop so that we could get the majority of the miles done by lunchtime and then either chill out there for the day or arrive at the campsite pretty early and do what we do best, sleep. The ride to Fairfield went pretty well with Jack only zoning out and nearly killing himself once and a few trucks coming only within a few feet of us instead of there usual Iowa-n few inches. Something else to note about these scenic highways is the amount of roadkill goes through the roof. Just this morning I've seen three dead deers, loads of dead birds, a handful of snakes, the odd racoon and quite a lot of unidentifiable smelly things.

We arrived in Fairfield just before 1pm and were all pretty tired and worn out by the sun. We cycled around a bit until we found a bike shop where we all planned to get a quick tune up and sort out all the weird noises that had appeared over the past few days. After a quick assessment the lady in the shop gave Ben the bad news that he had gone and completely ruined his drive train and the whole lot would need replacing. Brilliant. Also he may also need part of his crank shaft replacing to get rid of the clunking noise from his pedals. An expensive afternoon for him then. Jack and Tom on the other hand managed to get away with slight adjustments here and there.

We left the bikes with them and went to a chinese noodle buffet thing which was nice. Met some people there who told us that Fairfield was a weird place because lots of people meditate here.....? After Jack had a quick sleep in the restaurant we headed off to the public library to get on the internet and do some stuff. Back to the bike shop in a bit to find out the final damage and then still another 20 odd miles to ride before we have any chance of sleep. And I thought today was going to be a lazy one.

Thursday - Shitty roads

The humidity meant for an incredibly sweaty night producing a sodden tent both inside and out in the morning which wasn't nice! After packing the wet rag of a tent up we left for another hilly days cycling through Iowa.

Our first stop was in Corning for another healthy pastry filled breakfast at a bakery. Yet again Jack asked for something without egg and somehow managed to get a wrap thing filled with egg and not much else. Tom also hit the language barrier while trying to buy two dozen donut holes. It was only 8am and thing were already not going good!

Nothing much else happened on the terrible roads of Iowa that morning so to try and make the blog a little less boring we thought we'd share with you some of our favourite conversation topics of the past few weeks.....

1. Could we make our fortune by copyrighting/buying the rights to the design of the american flag as we seem to pass about 100 each day

2. How everyones bowels are performing including discussions about size, shape and dexterirt

3. What, how and where we could pick up some fancy dress ensemble en route so that we can roll up into Times Square looking like complete idiots whilst disrupting the traffic as much as possible

4. (my favourite) Trying to peer pressure Ben into proposing to his girlfriend (its about time) just so that we can organise a stag weekend to Vegas....we're slowly grinding him down

So after another subway for lunch we had another uneventful ride to another all you can eat place at the top of some hill. More cycling later and we had a drinks stop at some gas station and then cycled through what looked like the welsh countryside but with worse roads to arrive at another burger place for more food. After this we got lost for a bit in a small town, asked some sweaty bloke cutting his grass for directions and then arrived at the Red Haw state park campsite. A quick shower later we dried out the tent, had a romantic wander round the lake and then hit the sack. Done.

So in other new we were wondering if anyone has any friends, family or acquaintances in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana or Pennsylvania that would be interested in parting ways with a portion of there homes where three young British ultra endurance charity athletes could lay there heads??? If so let us know!

Also Tom has requested that if anyone has any spare time and fancies a moan then could they email the Iowa Department of Transport to ask them what the f**k is going on with the roads here (in particular hway 34), cheers.

Wednesday - climbing up hills in a sauna

We woke up late again but this time we couldn't blame the alarm as we were just being plain lazy! Jered however had somehow woken up and gone to a donut shop to get us breakfast! Thanks again for the food and hospitality, it 'was much appreciated.

The first fifty or so mules to plattsmouth were again pretty boring but also pretty hilly and seemed to just go up then down then up forever, ot wasn't fun! It wad also a pretty humid day and we were all feeling it for the first time.

After jack having a panic about losing his wallet (he hadn't) we stopped at another all you can eat pizza place for lunch. It was actually quite nice as pizza wasn't the only thing we were able to fill our faces with! A quick stop to grab some cereal bars and we were on our way again and quickly crossed over the muddy mess that is the Missouri into Iowa.

It seemed a lot more hot and humid in Iowa, also the roads were a lot worse with lots of qpcracks. It also turned out to be pretty hilly here, great news! The hills were a killer in the really hot and humid afternoon and made us stop at a gas station for a half hour strawberry slushy and powerade break. The drinks did the trick and we cycled over somemore hills to red oak for a random sit down Chinese meal served on paper plates, nice thou!

The final twelve miles to the campsite went well until tom decided to cycle past the entrance leaving jack and matt wondering where he was whilst standing in a campsite tentless. Tom finally showed up and we pitched the tent in a hopefully minimum bug area although we are surrounded by Viking lake so we could all be dinner for some bugs! On the plus side the showering facilities here are ample.

Tuesday - Corn, corn and more corn

We woke up in our 1980s apartment a bit late as we slept through the alarm, not good when we had to get somewhere one hundred miles away before five!

Nothing much happened for the first fifty or so miles except us passing a lot of corn fields, standard boring Nebraska really. We stopped for lunch at another gas station that apparently served subs. The fun occured when you tried to order a simple sandwich as the lady made you fill in an order form for your sandwich, turned around and made it and then handed you back the form accompanied by your sandwich. You then had to take the form with the sandwich to another lady in order to pay for it. Pointless system really, made us laugh! Met some nice builders sporting some great hi-vi t-shirts, looked the business!

After another forty miles or so we arrived in the Lincoln, the capital city of Nebraska. Quite nice place really as there were actual people walking around and no corn in sight!

We then went to find dr jays daughter Alex at the cool building in which she worked for roundus (check out there stuff, pretty cool). After being introduced to everyone there and freshening up we went for a wander around Lincoln to take in some sightseeing. We visited Nebraska universities campus, watched the football and womens soccer team train and then went to the state Capitol building (tom thought we were going to the steak capital, he was disappointed!) to take in some architecture, lovely stuff.

After some much needed food we met another of the doctors kids, jered, at alexs office. Jered works as a manager for Nebraska uni American football team so was wearing all the gear and gave us some stats and history of the team. He then took us to an all you can eat buffet where we met his roomate jeff and ate more food again.

Found some random stuff here including fried ravioli and tea bags but no hot water. After a quick plate of proper food we all hit the dessert section hard with jack managing to eat his own bodyweight in sweet stuff.

All feeling quite sick we went to pick up our bikes from the roundus office and then cycled to jareds house where we would be crashing for the night. Turns out all of jareds house liked actual football and were playing FIFA so tom unleashed some football trivia on them all. Jared donated his room and a great air bed to our cause so we all had a great nights sleep but felt bad that we wernt able to experience a drunken student night out in America, guess we will have to come and visit again then!

Monday

Waking up at 4.30am has not got any easier as the trip has gone on but we were treated to a breakfast of pancakes (for the carbs), eggs (for the protein) and orange juice (vitamin C) cooked by Jay. Checking the weather report we learnt that a storm was quickly coming in and so we quickly packed and got on our way. We stopped for another breakfast at a small Subway which was disappointing as the egg was like a piece of rubber and the cashier got Matt's and Jack's order the wrong way around which was only discovered when Matt was halfway through Jack's sub. The next segment of cycling was pretty standard with nothing of note occuring and we stopped for lunch at McDonalds. Bored of burgers, Matt & Jack decided to spread their wings and venture into the realms of Filets of Fish and Chicken Burgers which was a nice change and then Jack finally manged to phone home after about a week of trying on various payphones. Cycling on we had to stop at every small town as Jack's body decided it did not appreciate the change away from Big Macs and rejected it very quickly. A slow period of riding followed as Jack's concentration was elsewhere and he developed additional saddle sores in an attempt to keep his wind under control. We had dinner in a very dodgy roadside restaurant that only had one paper menu and all the food came from frozen including it seemed the potato salad was was fluorescent yellow.

Entering Grand Island which didn't seem very grand we cycled through the whole of town trying to find a motel and got chased by yet another dog. Turning around we stumbled upon a motel which was operated from an old lady's living room but was a very reasonable price. We found our room had a kitchen, shower, dining table as well as funny smell but we were so tired that we didnt really care. We stocked up on supplies and Tom visited Subway to get some free WiFi and found a message from Alex saying we could meet up with her tomorrow to arrange some food and somewhere to sleep in Lincoln. Jack passed out in bed almost straight away whilst Tom and Matt fell asleep to our new favourite tv show; "The T.O Show", a reality programme following the exploits of american football player Terrell Owens.

A massive thanks to Jay and all the Matze's for their incredible hospitality and help this week. It is greatly appreciated and without you guys we would have had a really tough time with Jack getting ill and finding places to stay. Thanks.

Matt

The rest of the day of the rest in the Mid-West

An afternoon of rest was just what the doctor ordered (literally) and Jack slept for about 5 hours whilst Tom and Matt caught up on facebook, planned the final 300 miles of the route and patched up some injured innertubes. For dinner we had a feast of the biggest steaks we had ever seen, mash and corn on the cob followed by some great homemade pies that Tom demolished. Topics of conversation included the massive college football program in Nebraska that Jay's son works for and has a 81,000 seater stadium and then we looked at some virtual panaramas that the eldest daughter Alex makes. Sloan's (the youngest daughter) friend then showed up for some pie and to meet "the UK men". We learnt some silly US rules about drinking including that some universities ban all alcohol on campus and you get kicked out of uni if you get caught and that you can go to prison if you are caught with alcohol when you are underaged, also known as getting MIPed (Minor In Possession). Tom then began his flirting in earnest getting them to bang him on facebook before trying to start a game of footsie with Hilary. Unfortunately he was quickly rejected and we started to compare music. Dizzee Rascal went down a treat but La Roux was not so well received and we began to demonstrate the greatness of some of our previous UK number ones, namely Bob the Builder, Mr Blobby and the Teletubbies. Hilary and Sloan were impressed by the album of our previous fancy dress efforts although could not grasp the concept of Pot Noodles and thought they were something to do with drugs but now want to spend a semester in the UK after showing them a video of LSU.

We stayed up pretty late (well 9.30) and looked forward to a great nights sleep in single beds for once! Thanks Sloan for giving up your bed for Matt!

We are also looking for suggestions on what the girls could do for a challenge after being inspired by our cycling efforts. We rejected their idea of riding a moped through the state of Nebraska as being too easy and not enough of a challenge so please share your ideas on what they could do.

Sunday AM - The Day of Rest in the Mid-West

Alright Blog Fans,

This morning things took a turn for the worst, after waking up and getting ourselves ready this morning Jack let us know he felt even worse today than he had yesterday. We got to the exit of the campground where he vomited and we decided to go and find him a doctor. We stayed at the KOA until the office opened and the English store assistant pointed out where the local community hospital was and we cycled over. We may as well have walked such was Jack's pace, decidedly 'Trevorspeed'.

On last nights blog you'll remember I said we'd get some pictures up of Jack's injuries so heres one of me treating Jack's gravel rach and insect bites. Those of you of a homophobic disposition may want to look away now.

We got there and while Tom pissed about for about 40 minutes on the phone to our insurance company to make sure we were entitled to treatment etc Jack was seen by a doctor (below)

Following his examination the doctor determined that the bites dominating Jacks body contained venom and his body was trying to get rid of them be forming an allergic reaction, which is what we thought. This was causing the general discomfort and nausea he'd been experiencing. Furthermore the amount of cycling we've been doing was putting his body under stres and was causing excess amounts of acid in his stomach hence the funny tummy. Some anti hestamines were in order. We decided then to call a halt to the days cycling as Jack wasn't in any fit state and were off to check into a motel after going to the recommended grocery store to get Jack's magic potions.

So we cycled off the few blocks away and as we were going in the Doctor that treated Jack, Jay pulled up. He heard from the nurses that we were Moteling and offered us a place to stay for the night. We took him up on his offer and bought some fruit and headed up over to his house, where I am writing this very blog. His wife Ann has just taken us for Sunday breakfast while we're making the most of the house mainly sleeping and watching TV aswell as sleeping.

The hospital staff who helped us are in the picture below. Jay is the gent rocking the moustache on the right. Cheers for your help if you're reading.

Thats all for now. May get another post out later on this evening.

Until next time Blog Fans, Keep it real like Ian Beale.

Tom

Saturday - The Bedbugs Do Bite

The day started normally enough with 116 miles planned following a re-jig of our trip days, getting on the road just before 6 am. We cycled through Paxton NE and onto Sutherland NE 33 miles into our day, where we stopped for breakfast at 8:20. It was at this point Ben redeclared his dominance of the puncture league pulling out his first front tyre puncture, showing his all round puncturing ability. There was a cafe there that was closed but wewent to a garage where they served breakfast style subs. We all ordered and waited until the subs woman brought over our stuff and got the orders wrong. Jack, who had earlier in the morning complained of an upset stomach and was harvesting a colony of insect bites around his body for the first time refrained from thanking the server in the station such was his dispositional disgust. While in the gas station we also lost a further hour of time, as we'd just crossed into the Central time zone, which was crap.
Following this we pushed on 20 more miles to North Platte NE where Jacks condition deteriorated as we ate at Donnas Diner, the Swansea native felled by endless cycling and apparent illness. Jack at this point declared he doubted we'd hit 116 miles today though Tom was keen to try and ush on to make sure we kept on track. We stocked up on the usual cereal bar suspects and some medicine for Jack's tummy in Family Dollar, the American equivalent on Home Bargains and set off to our next stop, Gothenburg NE. Only 8 miles in and we had our first incident. Ben, looking at his gears instead of the road while cycling didn't notice that Jack up ahead of him had slowed to take a sip of his water and careered into the back of his bike, going arse over tit into the tarmac with all the grace of a scouse slapper drunkly throwing her shapes outside a late night kebab van. Next up was Jack, meeting a similar fate only 10m after our next break. After setting off he attempted to tuck bens shirts into his pannier bags, but hit a pothole while doing so and promply hit the deck. Gravle rash had now covered his back and arse aswell as his bites. He soldiered on to Gothenburg 6 miles away where we got into a subway to assess the damage and feed. We took the decision to end the day at 5:00 and 90 miles and to set up camp in the local KOA (Kampground of America). We set up the tent and Tom attended Jacks arse sores while Ben laughed and took pictures which we will get up when we can. Following a forgettable day Jack hit the sack at 7:00 eastern time to recoup. Just Another day in the lives of ultra endurance charity athletes.

Play safe blog fans.

Tom

Whatever trevor

The train carried on hammering past all night long which wasn't a total disaster as it did drown the noisy family out (later found out that just down the road in north platte is a big transport station which routes trains all round the country). We set off again with overcast skies and quite cool weather. Managed to see some wildlife both alive and roadkill, personal favourite are the frogs trying to cross the road or the millions of  crickets that line the highways. It was also a nice change to nit actually be on the interstate.

We arrived at our first stop, sidney fifty miles away, after just three hours so stopped for a good old fat filled American breakfast. Here we discussed the plans for the next few days and decided it would be a great idea to try and gain a day in my by doing 360 miles over the next few days, possibly a stupid idea but time will tell!

Our next stop was in lodgepole where we met Trevor who jumped off the back of a truck and was also on his own cycling tour from fort Collins to Michigan. All he had however was a mountain bike that was stuck in 2nd gear and what appeared to be the biggest backpack in the world! We key him cycle on but caught up with him in the next town where we had another burger at burgies, a weird little place with a bowling alley.

After this we again parted ways so we could go get some much needed fruit and bite cream (jack and ben are covered in bites). However we again passed him along the way and thought that would be the last we saw oc him. We were wrong.

An hour or so later we see him fly past in the back of a truck, yet again getting a lift, if you're Reading this trevor good luck but stop cheating! Learnt a great new phrase off Trevor called 'trevorspeed'which means going slow and a phrase we will use a lot from now on.

We stopped one last time in a nice cafe In blumes where we met some nice old ladies and had a rest from the humid heat. The climate has changed a lot over our trip and we now seem to be in the hot humid bug infested part of America. Also everyone we have spoken to on the whole trip said that we would be going downhill by now and that it would be dead flat, well it isn't and you should all be ashamed of yourselves for lying!

We finally arrived in ogalalla where we found a campsite where jack and tom got an electric shock off the shower, brilliant. Met some lovely people there and even had a beer!

Thursday - Things starting to go to plan.....we wish

Another sweaty night in the tent saw none of us getting much sleep although the full moon did look pretty special! The plan for the day was simple, climb up one last mountain and then bomb it downhill in Nebraska and chill out by a reservoir, if you haven't guessed already the day didn't go to plan.....

The climb wasn't so bad and after only an hour or so we made it up 1600ft up to the highest point of our trip and the highest point on the I-80 at 8700ft. Here we chilled out for a bit and took in somd history at a rest area about the Lincoln highway which was once upon a time the quickest way to get from San fran to new York, coincidently this is kinda the route we have been following so far and will continue to follow.

The big downhill we were all waiting for never happened and instead sauntered along the rolling roads all the way to Cheyenne, however we did pass through Buford, the smallest town in America with a population of one! Tom popped into a Murdochs to swap the underarmour pull over top he'd got on Evanston, this time ensuring when the woman came back with a large size it wasn't a womans. Then we went to Rock on Wheels, a bike shop recommended to us by the information center we'd stopped at earlier. We all stated what was wrong with our bikes and George the Greek and his trusty sidekick Austin got to work. Jack, Ben and Tom all had a brake and gear tune up which didn't take long until said Austin spotted cracks in Tom's rear wheel, the same as Jacks in Utah. George didn't have a spare wheel of that type so offered to build one using a rim he had spare. While this was going on we all heard a loud bang outside the store like a gun had gone off. Infact it was an inner tube blowing up. Bens lead in the puncture league was cut to just 7-6 as Jacks puncture drought was dramatically ended.

So we now had 2 hours to burn while Tom had a wheel crafted for him so we went to a cafe called 'the pie lady' which served normal food and sweet pies after in a room with walls covered in different home made skirts. Yeh. This was a good mile away so the time walking back to Rock on Wheels flew by. We paid for the bike work and hit the road, now on highway 30, the first time we'd been off Interstate 80 in almost 10 days. We got to Pine bluffs 40 miles away and ate at uncle bobs cafe. We came back out after burgers into heavy rain and cycled to Oliver Reservois State Recreation Park 13 miles away. We pitched our tent and found no running water, a tragic irony. Then we were kept awake by the union pacific freight train sounding it's horn all night and some redneck family arguing and singing kareoke to rhiana in their truck. An interesting, testing and wet day.

Wednesday - The long road to Laramie

After a great nights sleep and a good breakfast we prepared for what tom billed as the most desolate day of the trip. So basically what he meant was there was little or no chance of getting food between rawlins and Laramie, which was 100 miles away, great! Oh and we would also spend the majority of the day climbing, it didn't sound too good.

We set off up the hill towards elk mountain and were immediately met with 12 miles of road works, no fun this time though as the whole road had been ripped up which meant cycling along rumble strips for an hour or so. This also forced us in parts to cycle on the sandy embankment where ben was showing off sone skills by accidently sliding all over the place. Also saw sone other cyclists tracks in the sand.....possibly another idiot trying to get to new York? Who knows!

On the way to elk mountain we saw loads of grass and animals and it was a nice break for the previous desert filled days. Nothing much happened until we got to a rest area at around 7800ft where we filled up our water bottles, met an artist and ate. Our diet for the day consisted of cereal bars, cookies and sweets. We even had ti break out the tesco value emergency flapjacks which had aged quite well considering tom gad imported them into the states and then carried them until we absolutely needed them. All of thus also got us thinking about all the health advice you get these days about junk food and how our parents used to tell you that you can't live on biscuits alone. Well it turns out you can as long as you cycle 100 miles per day anyway!

After the rest area there was sadly somemore uphill miles before we began our descent to larimie. Along the way two 23 wheelers (we were all astounded) passed us carrying the fuselage of some airplane, they were huge! Also saw a house on the back of a truck which was going slower than us and caused a five mile tailback.

We saw a truck stop advertised ten miles from our destination so pulled over in hope of getting some food but sadly it was not yet open for business so we had to endure more emergency flapjacks.

Once arriving in Laramie we went to a wemdys for some much needed food and then found a koa campsite with a plethora of grass. So all in all an uneventful day but we have passed thr thousand mile point and should hit half way by the weekend. Also tomorrow sees us reaching 8700ft but then it's all downhill from there.

Finally a quick update of the injury list..
Jack - twinge in right knee, serious saddle sores, bad back
Ben - puncture-itis
Tom - saddle sores, bad back, bad head

Tuesday-Excuse us, we have a sprinkler to move

Waking up after an uncomfortable sleep at the back of the rest area, we were glad that the only animal noises we heard were those of Tom's snoring. After packing the tent and a quick snack we set off into the cold summers morning. Jack had managed to lose his gloves somehow and so had to endure freezing hands. Wamsutter was 30 miles away and we were aiming to have a quick ride so we could enjoy some hot food for breakfast. This plan was disrupted by having roadworks close our side of the interstate. Feeling it was too dangerous to share a lane with massive lorries we decided to cycle through the roadworks. Cue having to cycle over freshly laid tarmac, gravel and past angry workman in trucks signalling for us to move to the other side of the interstate. We persisted and arrived in the town of Wamsutter which appeared to consist of just a petrol station and restaurant.

The restaurant itself was a weird experience with old furniture and a telephone by every table. There was a tv that was showing Spanish morning tv in shades of red. Jack ordered a burrito for breakfast and forgot that chips in America means crisps and so was disappointed when he received crisps. Tom wanted eggs cooked the same way as Josh did them but unfortunately the Mexican watress didn't understand this and so he had to order them "over medium". The highway police came in for breakfast and we were a bit worried when they inspected our bikes fearing that the workman had reported us. We quickly left but not before Tom picked up a map of Nebraska which he thought was free but mysteriously had a price on it.

Luckily the roadworks finished soon after and we were on our way to Rawlins. The cycle was pretty boring with the same kind of scenery that we encountered in Nevada although there were a few ups and downs to keep us interested. 5 miles outside of Rawlins, Matt discovered he had a slow puncture and so quickly pumped it up and raced on. Unfortunately this only lasted until we entered Rawlins when the tyre was completely flat. We decided to change it then rather than walk into town and so Matt drew level with Jack in the puncture league with 5 (as two of his supposed punctures were in fact exploding inner tubes). In terms of the puncture league Tom still isn't interested in joining in while we have a late entry by Jeremy who suffered a puncture after giving us all his spare inner tubes yesterday.

We ate at McDonalds and decided to stay in Rawlins for the night even though it was only half 1 as we didn't want to risk being stranded in the middle of nowhere again and we have a tough couple of days coming up. As we had enjoyed our experience at the KOA the other night we thought we would stay at one again and cycled to the outskirts of town. Unfortunately the campgrounds had no grass and consisted of a patch of gravel. Tom went to get our money back and was informed that it was hard to grow grass at 7000ft in the desert. This was surprising seeing as the main reception and rv areas were surrounded by lush green grass. Tom was then asked to move so that they could move a sprinkler that was watering their grass.

Spotting a hotel on the other side of the road we decided to go there to have a comfy night. It turned out to be the most expensive one so far even with a discount for us cycling for charity. We did however get free cookies. Having dinner at another service station was depressing as we become bored of eating rubbish food at inflated prices. Tom enjoyed his soup though as it smelt of his nanas house. The salad bar was uninspiring and jacks chicken was brown inside. We laughed at the time but are beginning to realise that the only reason we are laughing at everything is that we would cry if we didn't. Jack commented that he feels like he been driving along the interstate for days, only slower. Having a quick look for souvenirs we found a small figurine of a rabbit with antlers which sums up the surrealness of our experiences in Wyoming.

Assorted photos from the last few days

In a motel at the moment after a short 70 mile day (details of why to follow...watch out people as Ben will be writing his first blog entry later this evening) and it has a computer so thought I'd stick up a couple of photos. Please feel free to offer any funny comments or captions on any of the photos regardless of how offensive they are.

Ben's 'blown up' tyre, he is still adamant this doesn't count as a puncture

Prevailing winds blow three boys into the artic circle

Another cold and early morning was brightened up by the news that ben had managed to somehow get a puncture over night, this saw him storm into a clear lead into the puncture. After fixing it in the dark we headed off to our first destination, green river.

Along the way we were bombarded with advertisements for a hotel called little America, literally a bill board every half a mile or more. We arrived at little America and were due a rest break but didn't venture inside as we were too busy getting a photo with mile marker 69, whey. At this point the people leaving little America along the eastbound exit ramp were treated to a Stirling view of little ben as big ben relieved himself atop a bridge, fun.

Shortly after this jack decided to spice things up by declaring he had a slow puncture, our first hard shoulder puncture fix, getting good at this now. This makes it six for ben, five for jack and still zero for tom. After fixing it we carried on toward green river. On the way in we passed through a huge canyon which was brilliant to look at, up there with the lake tahoe view!

Here we stopped in a random fast food restaurant called the artic circle. It was a pretty comical place where the bloke serving us repeated our order into a microphone which was funny, he also had a cracking moustache! We have also decided to from now on give random funny names to the people in fast food restaurants so we can laugh when they inevitably call them out over the tanoy thing. Ben has also decided to pick up application forms from each place we eat in in the hope of attaining a grad job somewhere and putting his hospitality management degree to it's full potential.

After a few more miles through some canyons and stuff we arrived in rock springs. Here we had a bit of a palava trying to buy stamps, even the guys ups found it a hard task to sell us stamps! We then went through a drive thru ATM which throws the cash at you, tried again to phone home (it's impossible) and then went and lost our international house of pancakes virginity. Had a bit of kerfuffle here with the sheer amount of choice and options on the menu. For instance you have to pick a type of potato, then a type of gravy, possibly a type of sauce, etc etc etc, too much choice. However while tom and jack are muddling thru the menu choices ben is handling it like a seasoned pro, even ordering over easy eggs, still none the wiser what that means!

After a quick trip to walmart (officially full of idiots) for supplies and jack trying again to phone home (sorry katy) we headed off for the final thirty or so miles to a rest stop on top of a hill. On the way we popped into a proper local bar for some food and were treated to some frozen oven cooked pizza which cost us twenty dollars. After a minor hitch where a bungee cord got caught in jacks gears we climbed the final few hills.

Now we were warmed of a possibility of rattle snakes and scorpions but had no real choice as there was nowhere else for miles. After trying to hitch a lift down the road we gave up and ignored the no camping signs at the rest area as it was either stay here or ride in the dark again! Hope we make it thru the night!

P.s. Just realised who the guy from the artic circle reminds me of......ned Flanders

Sunday - No Moaning in Wyoming

Evening all,

We got up this morning after a great nights sleep and still full from the previous nights feast (cheers again guys), this of course didn't stop us tucking into a nice breakfast set aside by Lora (cheers). After this we got on the road around 6am only to find that it was cold, very cold outside. Over the past few days we have got accustomed to applying sun block at 7am and being hot within minutes of leaving the tent but apparently this isn't the case when you're 6000ft up in Utah!

We yet again joined the I-80 to leave Park City and eventually Utah behind. The road took us through some more brilliant scenery through some red rock canyons and small farming towns towards the east of Utah. There were no notable events for the morning apart from Ben being told off by a local for 'urinating' around the back of a gas station when their was a perfectly good rest room in side, a scary moment for him but a funny moment for the rest of us.

As we started our first ascent of the day Jeremy and his brother in law Jed drove past, parked up and got on their bikes with us for the remaining 25 or so miles left of Utah into Evanston, Wyoming. It was great to have them with us as it gave us someone different to talk to (bored of each other, on rides now have an hour of silent cycling and then a break for five minutes when we moan about cycling) and also made those last few miles go a hell of a lot quicker. We were also helped by the fact that Jeremy, who did 175 miles the day before, was pushing our bikes from behind when any of us got tired or started to lag behind. One word, machine! We then crossed into Wyoming (our 4th state) and managed to get a photo with our first state line sign!!

Before we go on with todays blog I feel I have to clarify the rules of the 'Truck wheel count-a-rama' game. When we say we spotted a 22-wheeler we do not mean 22 wheels in total, the rules of the game simply state that you count the sets of wheels not the individual wheels themselves. So for instance what an average american calls an 18 wheeler the game would dictate that that was a 10 wheeler (5 sets on each side). Clear? I hope so.

Other great topics of conversation of the day have revolved around time zones. Like for instance how great would it be if as a school kid you lived in one time zone then travelled into another for school, possibly giving you an extra hour in bed! Exciting stuff.

Anyway the blog. After arriving in Evanston around 11am we all pulled into a gas station to grab some water and say our goodbyes. Here we happened to meet some random bloke with a silver van who knew about Tom Jones (famous welsh singer) but was generally a bit of a nutter and weird. After that encounter we said goodbye to Jeremy and Jed for the last time. Again a big thanks must go out to Jeremy for orchestrating our smooth and comfortable passage through Utah, cheers buddy!!

We popped into a subway (again) for some food and didn't end up getting back on the road until 2pm. There were multiple reasons for this, firstly Tom, as always, spent ages faffing around looking for a fleece as it was starting to get cold. Secondly the lady in the Wyoming information centre was useless and only told us about wild horses (?) and not where we could/nt camp/. Thirdly we couldn't be bothered.

Once back on the road we had three big peaks to get over, the Three Sisters. Tom and Ben mounted the first sister and Jack, again, brought up the rear. The second sister was a little easier than the first and all the boys quite easily got their legs over her. The third sister however proved a little more difficult and stubborn but in the end we all managed to get over her as well.

After some great scenery including wind farms and massive mountains (Wyoming is nice, it has grass!!) we rolled downhill pretty quickly to avoid an ominous rain cloud into the small town of Fort Bridger for some food. Here again we had a chat with a lovely couple and sprightly waitress about our trip and what was coming up before heading on. We also ate some apparently 'English Chips' which were nothing of the sort. This town also managed to fascinate Ben due to the drive-thru liquor store, the epitimy of laziness!!

A short ride later and we were at our destination for the evening, Lyman, where we stayed at a KOA. Here we met a lovely couple for provided us with some good chat, marshmallows and pizza (cheers)!! In return we spread the word of Loras cookies further and yet again they were met with roaring reviews!

And now its time for bed before our cold journey in the morning up some more mountains......only four or so days of mountains left before the downhill and flat begins! Exciting.