Details of the final day

For those following this blog from afar, please accept my apologies for the delay in posting this. Three days into the acclimatisation process and all I can say is it's going to take some time longer. But anyway; the final day.

As I cycled the two miles from my B&B to Boston branch I was contacted separately by both Rich (a fellow sufferer - err I mean supporter - of Northampton Saints) and Steve (husband of a work colleague) to say they couldn't find the branch! Fortunately the three of us left more or less on time - after some last minute jettisonning of items from rucksacks and panniers as we realised that Liz (Steve's wife) was going to drive a support vehicle for the journey. The wind was much milder than in recent days so the 35 flat miles to Grantham was thoroughly enjoyable. If you'd have driven past us you'd have been hard pressed to work out which one of us had been practising for 6 weeks (although Steve's lack of cleats and Rich's mountain bike tyres would have been the clue - neither seemed to impede them unduly).

The reception at Grantham was wonderful (large sign and balloons) - made more so by the fact that they've only been in the property for a week. The three of us cyclists were joined by John S (see the end of week 2 for details) and Samantha (another good friend). At one point on the road to Scraptoft, I was behind the others and seeing us all in the same Samaritans T-shirts (well nearly all - I'd messed up so we were one T-shirt short) I swelled with pride. These guys were doing this not in some small part for me.

For part of the route we'd stumbled across some other cycling event (possibly a time trial of some sort) so we encountered some suspicious, turning to curious looks from various marshalls as "Team Samaritan" all in green passed by. Although there were a few slopes to split the pack, we kept together pretty well and our timing was close to impeccable as we arrived at Scraptoft more or less exactly at 4:30pm.

I have no regrets about the tour but of course, with the benefit of hindsight, there'd be a few things I'd have done differently. One of which would have been the planning of the last 5 miles. These turned out to be just about the most difficult of all of them (certainly from a logistics point of view). I hope everyone's photos came out because I cannot adequately describe the scene at Scraptoft. But there must have been (including spectators) 50 people there.

In addition to the 5 cyclists so far, we were joined by work colleagues, Sam volunteer colleagues, friends, family and family of all of the above. Cyclists varied from young to old(er); some wore jeans some had child seats on the back and there was even one of those two seater child carts (propelled with admiral perserverence by Claire).

Then there was Lawrence (publicity) and Norma (director) in our new Samaritans van and of course Jeremy (responsible for so much that is good on this website). Jeremy decided not to cycle the 5 miles and instead to film it in progress. I hope someone has captured Jez lying prostrate along the folded down seats of his hatchback while his wife Jane drove along and prayed for no policemen to pass by.

The problem was that keeping such a group together was not easy and as I'd not bothered to explain the route in any detail to anyone else there was no-one at the back to keep everyone together. So we quickly lost two cyclists (mercifully they found their way to the branch) and there was more than one more stop for dropped chains etc. We also lost most of the vehicles driven by spectators; altogether not my finest hour. After doubling back twice (up hills that I'd promised, myself as well as everyone else, that we would only be going down) I was quite tired.

So, quite a bit later than the planned 5pm, we arrived to an even larger gathering of people at Elmfield Avenue. Various Sams had joined with Norma to make it a great homecoming with food and drink aplenty. Amidst the crowds it was all very touching.

It's going to take a long time for me to absorb what it all means but, for now and before people turn off, I'd like to finish by thanking everyone who has helped to make it happen.