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'Are you serious?' said Ben.
'Well, you caught me in a good mood, and I've had both of these bikes sitting around
for a while now,' he said.
'Well I hope you can put ours to some use, so that we can at least go some way to repay
the favour,' I said.
Roger chuckled to himself.
'I might be able to pass the scooter on to someone,' he said, 'and I'll probably be able
to get some useful screws and bearings off the other one, but that's about it. Good luck to
you both. I'll put some air in the tyres for you and they should be good to go.'
Wehadtravelledabout14milesonthescooterandBMX.Thismaynotsoundlikealot,
but I had never felt more drained in my life. The energy it takes to propel a scooter with
foam wheels up a Cornish hill, or pedal a miniature BMX over a long distance, is immeas-
urable.
Our thigh muscles were burning, our knees were bruised from catching the handlebars
on the BMX, our heels were completely blistered from wearing the rigger boots and our
backs were aching from being in such unnatural positions. With hindsight, it would have
been far less painful and probably quicker if we had walked from Land's End.
After just a few seconds on our new bikes we felt like we had been born again. We de-
cided to alternate the bikes regularly, as they were both very different but each had their
advantages.Thepinkgirls'mountainbike-or'Pinky'asweimaginativelycalledit-hada
comfyseat, 12gears anddecent brakes. Itwasrather small, though,andthefattyres meant
it was quite slow. The racer - or 'The Falcon', as it became known - only had five gears,
a seat made of the hardest material known to man and handlebars that were about a foot
lower than the saddle. It had nice slick road tyres, though, and seemed faster than Pinky.
I did the first shift on Pinky and Ben started on The Falcon. We decided to attempt an-
other 10 miles or so, to try and make up for the time we had spent in St Ives playing in
boats and chasing deaf kids.
For the first time since setting off, we suddenly felt like we were making progress to-
wards John O'Groats. The road had opened up in front of us and we could feel ourselves
eating away at the 1000-mile route that lay ahead.
We had yet to establish a route for the trip. Seeing as we had to get everything for free,
we weren't able to bring a route book or map. We knew at some stage we would have to
ascertain how to get to John O'Groats, but in the meantime, we knew that if we roughly
followed the A30, we would be heading in the right direction.
We had made it our aim to avoid A-roads as much as possible. They might be quicker
and more direct, but they are no fun to cycle along and you don't get to see the country
in the same way that you do via the back roads. We made an exception on this occasion,
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