Today's route was from Clun to Runcorn, but as we were at Bishop's Castle we had a shorter day. The pain as we set off was excruciating so I detoured to a chemist to buy new dressings and bandages which helped. To catch up with Michele, I got a ride in the van to the first brew stop. There's not much climbing today, so I thought I would be OK to ride.
There were fewer of the narrow country lanes as we approached the Manchester conurbation but we didn't hit any real traffic until we were close to Runcorn.
Lunch at the Burlton Inn was amazing (same as last time). My fear that Peak-Tours was being forced to cut corners with the lunches was well in the past by now. For some reason the first three weren't memorable, but every lunch after that was a treat. After lunch it started to rain again.
We had only had a little light rain so far, but my Californian "rain gear" was already showing its limitations. I had to upgrade it as soon as possible. At least we had a tail wind so the rain wasn't in my face.
We had to deal with some traffic for the last five miles or so. I'm not proud of riding on the sidewalk, but our safety is paramount.
We all stayed at the Holiday Inn in Runcorn. This is a huge hotel with a serious understaffing problem (Brexit?). We went to the restaurant and there was no-one there. I could hear cooks in the kitchen but there were no servers. Apparently you had to scan the barcode on the table and order through an app. We did this and waited but the app gave no acknowledgement that it had received the order and no update on the order status. Eventually, we assumed the app hadn't worked and went to the bar instead.
There were no barmen at the bar. Joe was waiting there. Joe had a knack of heading straight to the nearest bar at the end of each day's riding. I joked that if Joe sat still for more than ten minutes they built a bar around him. After a long wait three barmen showed up and explained how the food ordering worked. They moved our order to our new table in the bar and after about 45 minutes our food showed up. It was very good, but that's one messed up restaurant.
The brochure in the room said they had laundry services but when we tried to get laundry done they said they didn't have the staff to do it. Other riders got their laundry done. This is unacceptable. I wouldn't stay here again. Inadequate staff is no excuse for inconsistent and confusing service. That's just poor management.
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