Our route continued on through Nelson and Burnley where we had the second traffic altercation occured when a large bus decided to go through the same gap as I was was going through between a traffic calming squeeze! Guess who had to do all the evasive work and braking. Oddly there were signs up everywhere claiming ""Lancashire - home of nice people" - but not in vans and buses it seemed!

Just when it seemed we'd had enough drama for the day, and we rolled into Todmoreden which was fairly quiet, a football rolled out into the street, I swerved to avoid it, but the cruch I heard behing meant that Ben hadn't! He was OK although he had hurt his left wrist as the bike came down, and the chain had flown off, twisted the front gear mech. and somehow bent the second chain ring. I had a few words with the lads who had kicked the ball, and they were mildy apologetic. Half an hour was spent outside the co-op fiddling trying to get the gears working properly again, before we set off on the final climb to Mankinholes which is only a mile outside the town, but mostly vertical!

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