Day 1 – to Wadebridge (77 miles including detours)

After a fairly light breakfast (decided to give the 'Full English' a miss), we got on the road just after 9. It was a 6 mile cycle trip down to Land End, which was very touristy, trashy and closed at 9:30 on a Saturday morning. So we took the standard photo and the Land's End to John O'Groats signpost and cycled our way to Penzance. The roadside hedges were beautiful, covered with flowers from top to bottom.

From Penzance, we headed past St Michaels Mount towards Redruth where we had lunch at a busy “greasy spoon” truck stop serving super-size all-day breakfasts (we decided on something a little less calorific). From there we headed downhill (max. speed 44 miles/hr) to Newquay and then to Padstow via an insanely hilly coastal route. Simon needs to work on his gear changes – we lost the chain at a couple of key times heading up +15% gradient hills.

At Padstow, we refuelled with ice cream and some fish and salad from Rick Stein's takeaway shop. Although it had been quite cloudy for most of the rest of the day, Padstow was sunny and we enjoyed watching the tourists and seagulls around the marina. At one stage a complete stranger patted us on the back – he had been on a bus which had overtaken us twice along the way.

We finally arrived in Wadebridge at about 6:45pm via a quick ride by the side of the river Camel. Britt was still hungry so we walked into town for some sticky toffee pudding and to experience Wadebridge on a Saturday night (we managed to leave before things got messy).