Day 7: Knighton to Chester (76.57 miles)

The next morning we get down to breakfast, to be told that the building society next door to the pub has been robbed. We can’t help but get the feeling that as official Strangers in Town, we’re prime suspects, so we get on the road as quickly as we can…

After an initial wrong turn, we’re set on our right way by a woman in a garage (“Ooh, I’m sorry to tell you, but it is a big old hill…”) and start the climb out of the valley, through Clun, Bishops Castle, and start our way to Welshpool. After the initial climbs, the roads get a bit easier, and we’re soon in Welshpool for lunch. From Welshpool we take the A road to Oswestry, and it really is unpleasant cycling for me, but they’re fast roads, so we make good progress.

It’s a relief to get off this road, and on to the B roads that we navigate round Wrexham on, passing through Bangor-is-y-Coed, which is lovely.

The day has obviously been too uneventful, as Al’s chain starts playing up, and we spend a few minutes on the side of the road fixing this as best we can, before saying goodbye to Wales, and heading into Chester to find the Youth Hostel.

At the youth hostel we have another encounter with other cyclists doing this ride – a group of lads who are far too enthusiastic for our taste, and we speculate from this and their size that they’re either army lads, or wannabe army lads (backed up the following morning at breakfast by their parting cry of “To battle!”). We also meet two younger cyclists who are not only riding from Land’s End to John O’Groats, but climbing the Three Peaks on their way. They tell us the cycling is harder than the climbing, and that they use the climbing days as rest days.

Dinner at the youth hostel definitely doesn’t make it into our top 5, and we’ve not got the energy to find out if there’s a pub nearby, so we have a quiet night.

We’ve done 453.75 miles.