The riders had a good first day cycling for the Charity Coast-to-Coast bike ride, starring David Hirst, Phil King, John Beresford and a host of Wednesdayite directors, members and volunteers.

So, how did the second day of riding go? Our special coast-to-coast blogger and participating cyclist (and, we're told, serial whiner), Nigel Short picks up the story:

"I'm writing this at 10:30pm here in Osmotherley, the 2nd stage destination of the Coast 2 Coast.

Last night saw us eating out in Hawes, the landlord of the Fountain Inn, clearly a good businessman, had spotted an opportunity and reserved the C2C'ers our own room with large screen tv for the Leeds/Liverpool game and waitress service for our food.

The evening was high spirited, comparing stories of our Day One experiences, funny things happening like Kingy cycling straight through the middle of some roadworks and leaving a deep groove in the new tarmac, and once again chuckling at Jim who managed to not only trip over a half metre high stage ("I didn't see it"), and the toilet step despite a huge 'Mind the Step' sign on the toilet door. Jim, you should have gone to Specsavers...

Back in the room I instructed Batty to sleep on his side to avoid the previous nights snoring. Unfortunately, I was then treated to new room-mate Jim Bainbridges snores for an entire evening. It is no exaggeration that I got so fed up in the middle of the night that I put my iPod on with my 'noise cancelling headphones' - and they still didn't drown him out - proving that Jim officially snores louder than an Airbus 400.

After a hearty breakfast this morning we were on our way at around 930, and it had been agreed that there would be more stops today with support team in attendance - apparently someone had moaned about it yesterday... :-)

Aysgarth was the first stop, quite a hill involved, and it was decided that as an added break we would drop down to Aysgarth Falls - a truly wonderful view. Hirsty did point out that as there was a 1:4 gradient involved, and how he'd already seen Niagara Falls he'd stay at the top of the hill and look after the bikes!!

We moved on, and headed on into Leyburn, sitting in the town square and enjoying a welcome break after the long climb.

From Leyburn we set off again, this time for Bedale. This was a brilliants stretch of about 11miles and I really pushed myself - and it seemed to take very little time before I was in the main street waiting for (some) of the others.

My gears have really been playing up on my bike, slipping and jumping from cog to cog, so I called in at a bike shop. He suggested he thought it may be the chain that was causing me the problems, and suggested I visit a bike shop in Northallerton, which was on our route, to arrange a replacement.
Back up in Bedale main street I found the rest of the team at the pub in the main street!! The weather was really getting quite warm and it was lovely sitting out and enjoying the break. Far too soon we were off again and heading for Northallerton.

I pushed out of Bedale and was determined to maintain the momentum I'd established on the previous stage, overtaking the lead 2 riders at Leeming. I maintained an average speed of 20mph on this stage, waited constantly for Bez to come sailing past (and no doubt on his mobile!), but he didn't, I was only overtaken on this section by Phil King!! It later transpired that Bez had been distracted by Elvis Presley on his iPod leaving Bedale and had gone over 4 miles in the wrong direction before realising he'd not overtaken anybody yet!!

He eventually arrived at the Durham Ox in Northallerton (yes another pub) just as I arrived following my visit to the bike shop!!

All of the people we have met en-route have been lovely, very positive. The guys in Cowleys Cycle Centre in Northallerton were no exception, recommending that I replace the chain with a Shimano one. They asked what we were riding for, and incredibly supplied and fitted the new chain free of charge as a result. How brilliant is that?? Cheers lads.

The cyclists left Northallerton en-masse while the support team collected with buckets in the high street. We all rode the final stage together to Osmotherley, a very picturesque small village, and origin of the Lyke Wake Walk - something I've been asked to do next year. So hopefully I will be back here soon.

We're staying in the village pub which means not so big a walk to bed!! We had another great meal tonight, the match was on but very few of us watched as once again we were all swapping stories, banter, jokes and generally having a great laugh (mostly at the expense of the 'useless' support offered by Jim and Richard (who have been brilliant really!)

We are now turning in, got to look our best in the morning as Sky Sports News are sending a crew to film us leaving Osmotherley, a few shots along the way, and then covering our arrival into Filey. Let's hope they get paid overtime is all I can think!! :-)

64 miles tomorrow.

Just sharing with 'Batts' tonight (Oh no, I'm turning into Kevin Blackwell). If he snores tonight I'm going to throw my glass of water at him.

Night all

Nige"

Note: There appears to be a little bit of a healthy 'stitching up' competition going on between the riders, who are sending us in embarrassing photos of each other - like the one of Jim happily snoring above and the one of Nigel eating in yesterday's blog. Nigel advises that he has actual video footage of Jim's earth-shattering snoring and he is willing to let us post it, as long as you donate to the Coast to Coast ride.. Simply donate here and leave us a comment below to let us know you've added to the fund, and at the end of the ride we'll put it up in the blogs if Nigel is sufficiently satisfied that enough donations have come in for it.