Ready for the off... and the dangers of a good bike shop

So what with tonight being Thursday and the Dun Run being Saturday I have less than 48 hours before the off. The only real hitch in my training plan has been going away to Cornwall for 11 nights and drinking like a fish/local. Yup that's a pretty big hitch.

To try and fit in any training in the remaining time between now and the ride would be silly.

I needed to pick up a few things for the bike, from several different bike shops, so I decided to do it all by bike. A nice neat 35km in 28C. I say several. The original plan was a 25 km round trip to Decathlon... However as I was about to set off I thought I'd drop into the LBS

It started to unravel at Two Wheels Good . I live on the same road. I started with bottle cages. I have a red alu coyote front cage and a cheap plastic (also red) back cage on at the moment. The plastic one is dreadful so I was going to just get one red metal cage.

I was in luck. They had Bontrager cages in red, black or plain. I went up to the counter one red cage.

"Do you know what I'm thinking?" I said after a little small talk of who was doing what rides.
"You're thinking that the red one you've got is pretty chipped and that if you've got to buy two you might as well get plain. It won't go with the bike, but it's a bottle cage. You'll live with it?" said the assistant.
"Pretty much. Yeah." I replied, before going off to swap one red cage for two plain silver ones.
"Have you got a bagman for the Carradice Barley?"
"Sorry. We don't do anything by Carradice... But if you can't find one come back and we'll work out something to help."

This is the way bicycle shopping escalates.

On the way to Decathlon I was overtaken by a lady on a vintage sports bike who had the same saddle bag as mine. The one that is rubbing on the mudguard that I plan to take off. Hers was in black and also supported. By a bagman saddlebag rack

"That's it!" I thought "What I need to do is find where 'On your bike' has relocated to and ask them if they have one.

Half an hour it took. Between a poor signal for the iPhone and it being hidden in a courtyard under a bridge I found them.

"Have you got a bagman for the Carradice Barley?"
"We have several options for that particular bag..." I'll spare you the details, but needless to say they came up trumps again.  Great shop. I also bought some Argyll socks...

At Decathlon I had merely perused the wetsuits (after my attempts of sea swimming in cornwall) when I bumped into Warren. Much talking and I decided to buy the same front bag he has and some new shorts.

In Decathlon I intended to get new shorts and some 1ltr bidons. I would never normally use ones this big but the difference between being able to carry 2ltrs of water instead of 1.5ltrs may be important when everywhere but 24hr garages are shut.

I not only found some... in a disgusting colour scheme... but I also found some Alu ones with red and black caps that go with both the new cages and the bike...