Day 6 - Chorley to Penrith

Last night was spent at a local Greek restaurant where we had an expensive, but superb meal and we then caught the last 15 minutes of the England game in a local pub.
Day 6 - Well it's a big one today. The stats suggest 93 miles and 5900 feet of climbing. We are estimating 12 hours on the road so quite a challenge. An early start was needed so we asked for a 7.30 breakfast. The first challenge of the day was the bowl of porridge. Sadly CFE was not up to the first challenge. This does not bode well for someone with no staying power.
Breakfast conversations revolved around how well did we sleep?, how are the muscles?and how are our posteriors (three blokes together don't actually say posteriors!) During breakfast CFE announced that he hoped vesuvius would not erupt during today so He would be suffering today. Now this reminds me of a book I read in childhood called "Seven Days in the Saddle by Major R Saw" It suggested in the book that you help your friends and apply chammy cream for them. This seemed strange to a young mind but I can now see the benefits, but I am not going to suggest it to CFE and the GOF! I know that we are all sharing a room but this would put our friendship in jeopardy!!
The above book was one of three I remember from childhood, the other two being "Haunted House" by Hugo First and then a story of a young lady losing the love of her life and commiting suicide "Falling Off a Cliff" by Ilene Dover........But I digress.
At 8.37 we said cheerio to Chorley and headed north pedalling purposefully to Penrith passing pedestrians, Post Offices and Pubs.
We met a fellow cyclist named Steve, who cycled with us for several miles and gave us some local advice regarding, terrain and fuelling points.
One pub we didn't pass was in Slaidburn where we had a fine lunch again not touching any alcohol.
"ALL" affected us all again climbing over 300 metres immediately after lunch. It was a good steady climb and once at the top had fine views over the climb and the plateau we had reached. The strange thing about this area was that we were in the Forest of Bowland but where are the trees? To say this is The Forest of Bowland there is a distinct lack of trees.
We passed through the outskirts of Kirkby Stephen and Sedbergh on this marathon ride dragging our sorry asses and panniers towards Penrith.
We knew that the ride today was 70+ tough miles plus 20ish downhill but the last climb after Aston was tough. Once over this it was all downhill or mostly.
CFE and TVR arrived at the B&B in Penrith at 8pm some 11.5 hours after leaving Chorley. The GOF rolled in 15 minutes later. We were all knackered but pleased that we had arrived. The weather was favorable for cycling even though there were a few spots of rain in Chorley.
The garmin tells me we covered 97.7 miles and we were on the road for 11 hours 28 minutes of which 8 hours 36 minutes in the saddle. Our climbing stats was 2401 metres which equates to 7000+ feet! My max speed today was 47.5 mph.
In view of this it was touch and go whether we should visit the local accident and emergency to have our saddles surgically removed!
The B&B owner arranged for the local Italian to serve us even though we arrived after "last orders". CFE and TVR had a quick shower and the GOF had a cold bath informing us that this had superb muscle recuperating qualities. We had no energy to debate this.
A fine Italian was had and bed was then extremely welcome.