I discovered a broken spoke in my back wheel last night, so this morning I went to see it fixed. The owner of the first bike shop, Bob’s Cycles on Ruskin, just got back from a week off and was swamped with repairs. He offered to let me use his tools around noon if I wanted. So I went on to Edwardes, a bit further down Camberwell Road, and the shop that Luke recommended (his family bought all their bikes there since his childhood). They said they could squeeze in the fix and I could pick up the bike at the latest at 2pm. Nice! On my way back to Kate and Luke’s, I picked up a nice cappucino and pain au chocolat from Fowlds, a hipster Cafe.
Liz, Kate, and Luke were out to get fresh pain au chocolats from the Little Bread Peddler, a wholesale bakery that does direct sales on Saturday. They were still gone when I got back, and as soon as I sat down on the couch, the bike store called that the bike is already fixed. Great news, as we had planned to meet Ralf and Abbie for lunch at one, which I would have missed to pick up the bike. The repair was only 15£ and I left a 5£ tip for the mechanic. That was easy! And it is good to know that the bikes ride just fine even with one broken spoke; I did not really notice a difference on my way to the bike store.
After the delicious pains au chocolat, we packed up, said our goodbye and many many thanks to our wonderful hosts Kate and Luke, and cycled to a post office to mail some post cards. We had some time left before meeting Ralf and Abbie, so cycled to Evan’s Cycles to buy new cycling pants for me (they are a bit chafed through and whoever is behind me can see my buttcrack).
Cycling on the very nice Cycling Superhighways through London, we got to Store Street Espresso, another hipster cafe. We had salmon/poached egg on sourdough toast breakfast plates and learned about Ralf and Abbie’s three week trip to China, which sounded like a wonderful experience.
Much later than usual, we finally hit the road! Given the late start, we decided not to follow the NCN for once, but make a Google-Maps-suggested beeline to the hotel near Chelmsford. This would save us about 15km and probably even more in equivalent time given that the route is almost all the time on roads.
Today was our fastest day, with the moving average speed even about 20km/h. The mostly flat terrain and our desire to get out of the city certainly helped. We did not really pause either, except for a short water bottle refill from the 1.5l reservoir bottles in the panniers. Given the fast speed, we arrived at 6pm, and can still enjoy a relaxing evening. Tomorrow will be the last day on the island before we leave by boat from Harwich to the continent.
Total distance/elevation to date: 1175km/9523m
Day 15 Route and Stats
The 1948 Tour 
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