Wow, it’s been a month and a half since my last blog post on here. The reason? There’s been a major hiccup with the expedition. Let me explain. Since the last post i had cycled to on to Devon via Exeter. I spent a few days at the coast waiting for a lift on a yacht across the channel to France. I had been holding up at a campsite for 3 days and would head into Torquay each morning to make use of the free McDonalds internet connection and to use free Coffee vouchers my father had given me before i left. I was starting to get extremely itchy feet and so decided to head off to Dartmoor got a few days. Please read this excerpt i took from my original post about the accident i posted on my website to find out what happened next.

“3 days in Torquay was enough for me. There were only so many times I could sit by the Marina seeing boats come and go, twiddling my thumbs waiting to hear about possible crewing positions so I decided to take off and head to Dartmoor for a few days wild camping. So I loaded the bike once more and set off.  I weaved my way along the coast for a few miles and then double backed on myself to take an ‘A’ road to Dartmoor.

This is when it all wrong. One moment I was freewheeling down the road and the next I was face down in a patch of stinging nettles. It took me a couple of seconds to realize quite what had happened but as I lifted my head and looked back up the road I saw my bike and panniers scattered across the road, blocking traffic. I started to climb to my feet when a couple of men ran over and helped to pick my equipment up. We managed to gather all my belongings quite quickly and it was then I started to feel the pain in my left leg.

“What happened?” asked one of the guys, straightening out my handlebars.

“I’m not sure, I just came of my bike. I must have hit a pothole or something”

“Are you sure? I’m pretty sure that car hit you” said the other man now joined by his wife.

He went onto explain that he saw a small white car hit the trailer, which I gather threw me off balance and ended in a tumble. The driver drove off and nobody was able to get a good description or a number plate, so that was that. As we were stood there the pain in my leg grew worse and as I started to hobble around trying to piece together my bike I realized that the derailleur had bent and snapped, and that the front wheel was slightly buckled and the rear wheel had several broken spokes and was severely buckled. I wasn’t able to ride the bike anyway.

Luckily the gentleman and his wife who had stopped offered to go and fetch their pickup, put my stuff in the back and drive me to a campsite. In those few minutes I had to wait for them to return with the pickup the pain in my leg was growing worse and (rather comically) I realized I was covered head to toe in nettle stings from being unfortunate enough to land in the only patch nettles for 100 yards.

After spending an evening in the campsite I took my bike to be repaired at a local bike shop that replaced all the broken bits a pieces and made sure the bike was structurally OK. This unfortunately cost me £300 which had caused a huge deficit in my funds (and makes the search for sponsors even more important).

The bent derailleur

For the next week I stayed at my grandparents friends house as I rested what I thought was just a pulled muscle or some bruising. After the swelling went down and I was still in a lot of pain I went A&E to get my leg checked out. Apparently I have strained a ligament in my knee and have been advised to rest for ‘2-3 weeks at least’ and then ease back in to gentle cycling. The nurse confirmed that gentle cycling doesn’t involve a fully laden bike.

So I made the (extremely) hard decision to come home until my leg is healed and I can resume my journey from where I stopped. This is quite a blow as I was just getting into the swing of things and was really enjoying my time on the road.”

So there it is, I was hit by a car. I’ve spent the past weeks at home recovering; a process that is taking longer than i originally thought. I’m feeling alot better but i’m growing very anxious to get back on the road.

The time off the bike has afforded me the opportunity to renew my search for corporate sponsorship and also to secure a couple of new equipment sponsors, one of which will help to keep this blog and my website updated more frequently.

If anybody is interested in becoming a sponsor, either through your business or as an individual sponsor please head over to my website to find out more.