Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Porthtowan is a pleasant village that is home to one of Britain's most popular surfing
beaches.Itapparentlyhassome'sickbreaks'and'phattubes',whateverthatmeans.Again,
thevillagewasonceanimportantminingspot,butitnowreliesheavilyontourism.Incase
you were wondering, the name Porthtowan is derived from the Cornish words 'porth' and
'tewynn' meaning
'Cove of Sand Dunes'
. You will sleep tight now.
Just on the outskirts of the village we passed Porthtowan Garage. Now, I'm no bike ex-
pert, but we figured if we borrowed a spanner and tightened a few nuts here and there The
Falcon would be cured.
'Wheel it in and I'll take a look at it,' said John the mechanic when we asked to borrow
a spanner.
'The brakes are gone,' he said. 'I'll do my best to tighten them up, but they're pretty
much finished.'
He tightened some nuts, lengthened some cables and shortened some others. He then
dribbledoilfromoneofthoseold-fashionedoilcanswiththeridiculouslylongnozzle,over
various bits of The Falcon's anatomy. I could almost hear it purring. The Falcon, that is,
not the mechanic.
The road out of Porthtowan was stupidly steep. For the first time since getting our 'real
bikes' we got off and walked. We didn't feel guilty about it. When it gets to the stage that
you are cycling uphill at the same speed that you would walk, there is simply no point in
busting yourself.
Oncewehadmadeittothetopofthehill,theterrainlevelledoutandthecyclingbecame
easier. The sun was out so we took off our t-shirts. We still had limited clothing and we
decided that the less we sweated onto our clothes, the better.
I was still commando at this point, as I had attempted to wash the salty sea water from
my boxer shorts in the sink at the Vyvyan Arms and have them dry by the morning. I had
succeeded in the washing part, but failed miserably in getting them dry. I'd hung them out
of the window at night, naively expecting them to dry by the light of the moon. I then tied
them to my rucksack so that they could dry during the day.
Going topless with my suit trousers left my lower half rather exposed. The bailer twine
had not really helped, and in order to stop the trousers falling down completely, I had to
roll the waistband over several times. This caused them to hang extremely low, revealing a
view of pubic hair. Now I'm sure that this is a mental image that you didn't want formed,
but I feel that it is my duty to paint as accurate a picture as possible.
The road between Porthtowan and St Agnes was banked with high hedges, so despite
cycling along the coast, we only had occasional glimpses of the sea.
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