Day 6 Stone to Chorley 80 miles (459 so far)

Very good day’s riding. We seemed to have sorted ourselves out in terms of a warm up then how to stick together better to get better speed and to help each other. A very hot day but not so hilly so it seemed cooler with the breeze. We passed into Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire.
David is updating his twitter – FatDaveonaBike so check it out on twitter.com. David managed to miss the two County signs today because he was so far ahead of the rest of us.
The mishap mile today involved Vince who lost a screw on one of his cleats, Vic and Brian who missed our last water stop and Mike who decided that our lunch stop should be taken on a grass verge on a blind bend on the wrong side of the road. Kieron also broke his mudguard shortly before lunch and has had to visit the local bike shop to sort his gears out. The winner is Vince at 418 miles where Adam swapped shoes with his Dad who found them more comfortable than his own and did not want to give them back.
£25 was raised in an auction of lost items at this evening’s tour meeting.
Ian has retained the spanner, the wobbly wig and his WKD wig. Ian almost caused a pile up due to unscheduled gear changes on an incline causing almost all of us to nearly fall off. Ian feels that he world is against him at the moment so we will try to keep that feeling up as long as possible!
Andrew and Michael are both very relaxed and have slipped into tour mode. Kieron has been very quiet all day having returned to the tour after his exploits at home although he did do a good job getting the washing done although Brian complained that his underpants had not been ironed properly.
Stewart bought a new map bag (£40) for his bike which works as we only went wrong twice, a much better record than the Garmin at £400.
Generally spirits are high and we are looking forward to hitting the half way stage tomorrow. As long as we can get a connection we will update the blog with a brief review from each team member tomorrow.
Our thanks to all the staff at the Brook House Hotel for making us feel very welcome and also doing some of our laundry. Thanks also to the other guests who have donated generously to our fund.