Exhausted and jetlagged, I napped and tried to deal with getting online and letting Reynolds and Pat Wilson from the Road Club know by phone that I'd arrived, shaky but alive. In the next few days I spent hours on the road, lost in the Warwickshire countryside on my new bike, stopping every so often for directions. Every Englishperson I met was friendly and helpful beyond belief. It seemed to me immediately that Britons are more social than Americans. They look at each other intently while they're chatting.
Pubs are nothing like bars.
The English people I met and watched seem to love their friends and care about them far beyond superficiality. They form clubs for every activity and remain loyal to clubs they join. Loyalty is the rule. Perhaps my host, the Coventry Road Club, is not typical in its social focus. Perhaps it is.