August 8 started like many days on a bike tour. After packing my tent, I noticed some torpedos near our campsite.

Normally, that’s unusual, but this kind of stuff shows up sometimes, while exploring the UK & EU.

Later on, the hills were tough, but that’s also common, especially on mountain bike trails.

When we were close to the top, the hills got steeper and some mist showed up.

The mist changed to rain. I was soaked, cold, and cycling up and down steep hills with mud over rocks. The rain and hills got harder. It wasn’t much fun.

At one point, my back hurt more than before. I re-injured my back from bouncing around the rocks. Flipping my bike the day before likely didn’t help. After more hard rain, steep hills and mud on rocks, I screamed in pain while pushing my bike.

When my friend and I finally made it to Bristol and dried off a little in a pub, called the Shakespeare, we suspected I would have to end the off-road trails we planned on.

The next morning, my back still hurt. My friend loves off road trails, so we decided that they would continue on the off road route across Britain, and would change to the road-route.

This is the first time an injury changed my plan, even going back to my marathon days. Maybe it was finally my turn, but it was sad seeing my friend cycle away.

I stayed in Bristol to give my back a rest. More on that in the next post.