Chris gets (1) over enthusiastic and (2) lost.

Cheddar to Chepstow. Official mileage 45.7 miles. My mileage 46.6 miles...

A similar sort of day today as we had yesterday, with the morning spent in hills, picking our way down lanes covered in dark green animal matter and the afternoon on flatlands.

Felt very weary last night, really struggled up the stairs to my room but woke up this morning feeling quite racy and energised. Decided to have a bit of a blast and see how I got on, significantly increasing the work rate and pace from the off. Normally I can keep it up on a one-off ride for 30 miles or so. Started off well, blasting up the cheddar gorge and climbing hard for 3 miles. Shot past the 3 older chaps going at near race pace whilst they were going pretty slowly - I guess they must have thought "idiot". Got my comeuppance about 10 miles down the road when I ran out of juice and then spent the next 10 miles feeling crap. Had an energy bar which had no effect. Finally found a shop and downed 2 bottles of lucozade, that had the desired effect!

The scenery though was pretty dull and not many places worthy of stopping for a photo. Didn't enjoy the afternoon much as it was making our way over into Wales - crossing both the avonmouth and old severn bridges, spending several miles in the grim outskirts of Bristol and generally spending 2 hours on cycle paths alongside busy / noisy roads, not really my idea of fun.

Finished in Chepstow right by the castle. Chepstow seems really nice.

Comedy moment of the day - the route into Chepstow took us down a narrow back lane, which was a one way street (and not our way). Now, to explain, you have to follow the guide notes - they are notes, not a map - so if you deviate from them you will never get back on route - and it said "go down the one way street - careful, you are going the wrong way down" - so down I went. Got to the bottom and stopped. A lady calls out:

Lady "excuse me, do you realise that is a one way street"?
Me "yes, thanks"
Lady "well it's not very good is it, what would have happened if you would have been hit by a car?"
Me "ah, that's very sweet of you to be concerned, thanks very much, I'm touched"
Lady walks off...

And they say that cyclists have a bad image...?

Managed to take my first wee detour today. I would love to say that the route notes were wrong but actually it was all my fault - and Heather will love to hear me say that as I NEVER (EVER) get lost. I was alas cycling along reading a text message one of my fellow cyclists had sent me and flew past the left hand turn I needed. Alas I did not realise until I had then climbed 1/2 a mile up a 1 in 6 hill. That will teach me...

Stats for the day:

Time spent cycling: 3hrs 54 mins
Average speed: stubbornly refusing to rise from 11.9mph
Max speed 39.5 mph
welsh ladies annoyed: 1

Love to all

Cheese = smile?

Just been into have a wander around Cheddar. One piece of advice to anyone thinking of coming here - don't - what a shite hole. Bumped into one of my fellow cyclists whilst wandering around - he put it best "how to take an area of outstanding natural beauty and completely fuck it up".

Nuff said.

Pugh spies his homeland

Tiverton to Cheddar: 53.4 Miles

A reasonable morning, starting easy and then ending with a tough climb up and over the Quantock Hills. Legs feeling very tired and weary on all climbs - just plodded up every hill in granny gear, tried a few times to power climb up some of the hills, got about 20 yards and gave up. Apparently it is commonplace on days 4 and 5 to feel weary as the body is protesting at the recent continual overtraining, and then by day 6 or 7 it has adjusted. Passed into Somerset so that's two counties done now. Sat in a cafe on top of the Quantocks and asked the owner what the land was that I could see in the distance - it was Wales.

After lunch was pretty easy, a 30 mile cruise keeping the Bristol Channel on our near left most the time. Apparently we cross it tomorrow over the old Severn Bridge.

A little info on the other people doing the ride - eight in all. 6 guys, 3 of whom are late 50's / early 60's. Two of them regular cycle tourists, having toured many countries both in Europe and further afield. All of them are struggling up the hills somewhat, but nonetheless very impressive, I really hope I am able to do something like they are doing when I'm 30 years older. All of them were pretty depressed last night, the cumulative exertions of the previous few days catching up with them I guess. I'm sure they'll all be fine, they've done this sort of thing so many times before.

The other three are myself and a father and 16yr old son, the three of us keep roughly the same pace. The son is impressive to have the stamina to do 1,000 miles at 16 years old as at that age one generally has speed but not stamina (ones muscles change over the years). He's also doing it on a touring bike which is probably 15% or so less efficient than a racing bike. None of the three of us have "cracked" yet - we've made it up every hill without stopping. OK, only just - all three of us thought about it and got close to stopping - like when you've been climbing solidly for 20 minutes and are pretty knackered, you turn a sharp corner and all it does is get steeper - that's when you think "oh sod this", but we all just about made it up somehow.

The two girls - one is early 30's and the other is an American lady in (I believe) her early 60's, she's recently completed the cross america ride - 4,000 miles over 9 weeks, very impressive at any age, let alone at 60. She's here just for this trip and is using it as a chance to see the country.

What else is interesting - diet I guess. When I'm at home I'll usually skip breakfast, have a sandwich for lunch and then pasta or something for dinner. Not sure quite how many calories we've been consuming over the last few brutal days but by way of contrast yesterday I had porridge, followed by full english breakfast. Then stopped for elevenses - a large slice of chocolate cake and a packet of fudge. Then stopped for lunch - baked potato. Stopped mid afternoon for an energy bar and then went our for a Thai in the evening and polished off 3 courses. All washed down during the course of the day with 3 cans of flat full fat coke and a couple of cans of flat lucozade. And when I went to bed - I was still hungry...

Stats for the day:

Time spent cycling: 4hrs 10 mins

Average speed 12.8mph (highest so far, wahey)

Max speed: 39.5mph

Lowest speed: 2.8mph (lowest so far, up the Quantocks).

Wet Wet Wet

Ottery to Tiverton: 51.3 Miles

Started the day off with a really nasty climb, around 5 miles long all the way up onto Dartmoor. The moment we passed the "you are entering Dartmoor National Park" sign the heavens opened with torrential rain. Decamped and quickly threw on the wet weather kit, which seemed to generally do the job, although everything is a little soggy, there's only so much water lightweight rain kit can keep out. Climbed all the way to the top of Dartmoor in the rain, a really long slow slog.

Flew down the other side with the rain stinging my face. Broke the 40mph Dartmoor speed limit on one of the descents. The moment we leave Dartmoor of course the sun comes out.

Rest of day was pretty tough, but not quite as brutal as yesterday, albeit with two really nasty hills at the end - but generally was able to keep more of a rhythm up and down the hills, it was less twisty and turny. Other than in a couple of small towns we passed through we barely saw more than a dozen cars all day, a really lovely route.

Had to do a 2 mile steep descent down a narrow lane with full brakes applied all the way down to keep the speed down (as the road was covered in stones and organic animal matter). Stopped at the bottom and thought "hm, I wonder how hot the rims are" (the rims heat up due to the friction from the brakes and if too hot can cause the tyre to explode). Had a bit of a D'oh moment as I burnt the tips of two fingers in discovering just how hot the rims actually are...

Stats for the day:

Time spent cycling: 5hrs 2 minutes
Average speed 10.4 mph

Max speed 43mph (a new high)
Min speed 2.9mph (a new low...)
"The organiser is a sadist" moments: 2

love to all

It's ugly out there

St Mawgan to Ottery: 42.3 miles

A really tough days ride with perpetual steep hills followed by steep descents. Pretty much all the day was spent in typical Cornish narrow roads with high hedged banks on both sides, so the scenery was rather repetitive. Up and down all morning, through Bodmin and working our way up to Minnions, the highest village in Cornwall and a really really tough climb.

Went over my first cattle grids, which as Heather will tell you makes me very excited, and saw my first sheep wandering on the road, which as Heather will tell you makes me overexicted.

Other than the toughness a really nice ride with almost no traffic on any of the roads that the tour had chosen, which was great considering it was bank holiday Monday and the main roads would have been packed.

Over the River Taymar and into Devon at the end of the day.


Stats for the day:

Total ride time 3hr 56mins
Average speed: A meager 10.6mph
Max speed 35mph
Min speed 3.1 mph
Number of times the granny gear was used: countless
Number of times I wondered if the tour organiser was sadistic: 4
Number of climbs you get like those encountered today around hertforshire: none.

Love to all

Thanks goodness for the "granny gear"

Summary of the day: up and down, up and down, up and up and up.

Lands End to St Mawgen (next to Newquay airport): 61 miles

The day started off with a really ugly climb from our B&B back up onto the main coast road. Having to do it without much in the way of warming up didn't help either. Struggled to the top of the hill only to turn around to see that most of the rest of the group having dismounted and walking up. This feat of not getting off I would like to say is due to my vastly superior fitness, but it's actually due to the chap at the bike shop who fitted the lowest gear he could lay his hands on - basically he nicked it off of a mountain bike, which has much lower gearing than road bikes. This really low gear was later referred to as a "granny gear" (i.e. a gear that your granny would use) but hey, granny didn't need to walk up the hills...

The next 20 miles were relatively easy, cycling along the old coast road, being pushed along by the sea breeze. Fantastic scenery.

Alas after 20 miles we turned inland and the next 40 miles were not nice, loads of granny gear long slogs up hills, then down, then all the way back up again. Didn't stop and walk up and of the hills so I am smugly happy about choosing to put such a low gear on.

Stats for the day:
Miles covered: 61
Time taken (actual time cycling time): 4hr 55mins
Average speed 12.5pmh (average speed on most rides at home 14 to 17mph by comparison)
Max speed 37mph
Min speed 3.4mph (sub walking pace...)

A shorter day tomorrow at 42 miles. Feeling pretty fit but also very happy that I went for the 3 week tour that averages 50 miles a day rather than the 2 week tour that averages 75 miles a day, think 75 miles today would have been OK as fresh legs, but getting up and doing it again tomorrow on tired legs would have been really tough.

2 miles gone, 998 to go

Finally arrived at lands end after 5 hours on the train. Got so bored at one point that I decided to take some photos of the train spotting nerds who were taking photos of the train. Am having a wee technical hitch in uploading photos onto the blog, will get it fixed soon.

As expected on a bank holiday weekend lands end is packed out, really busy. Had the obligatory photos taken and then rode a couple of miles down the road to Sennen. Staying in the Old Success Inn which is reasonably nice - but right on the sea front - my (albeit compact) room looks out onto a lovely sandy bay.

It also looks out onto out first challenge of tomorrow, out the door and straight into what looks like a 1 in 6 hill. Lovely.

Had really fantastic fish and chips for dinner tonight. Best fish ever had, melt in the mouth stuff.

Guess the pace of life is a little more relaxed here - asked what time breakfast is tomorrow - it starts at 8.30am - I'm normally a good hour or so down the road by then. Oh well, never mind.

A little nervous about the days ahead

Sitting on train on way down to Penzance. Can't remember last time I was on a train for more than an hour, let alone 5 hours. Going to get really bored and I suspect a severe case of cabin fever.....

Feeling pretty fit and in a vaguely decent form of physical fitness, I've done just shy of 2,000 miles so far this year to train for this ride. Was pretty happy up until a week ago and was thinking that the hills of Cornwall & Scotland were perhaps not going to be as ugly as everyone says they are. That was until spending a weekend in Wales and watching cyclists struggle up 1 in 5 hills and 5 mile long climbs - so perhaps it is going to be a little less easy than cycling around the flatlands of Hertfordshire and Cambridge.....

First few days weather forecast is looking pretty good, not to hot and not too rainy with a nice westerly breeze.

Am going to ride the huge distance of 2 miles tonight - from the hotel to lands end and back again, so we can get all the photos etc done tonight and then get away from the hotel at a decent hour tomorrow morning. Even that 2 mile return trip has our first 1 in 5 hill, so that will be "interesting"...

Love to all.