921 miles. 7 days, and over 12 000m of ascent. The team reached JOG at 6.20 sunday evening, after over 48 hrs "in the saddle". Some tears (me), a lot of champagne spraying, and a marveloous feeling of achievement and relief. Day 7 started from a B&B near Inverness, riding into strong cross/head winds. and ended with a blistering downwind roller coaster across the barren Caithness landscape. All members of the team had different problems during the trip (Hamish ...the runs, Martin .....too many ailments to mention, and a worrying tendancy to strip off down to his heart rate monitor for #2 relief behind an accomodating hedge, Jack acute knee pain, George..........neck & back pain - knee pain- achilles blisters, and a general propensity to be on another planet, and yours truly....chronic impatience disorder). Our support team...Chris Vokins to statt, Graham & Betty Cooper for the middle section, and John Cooper for the final 2 days made the whole trip possible. Huge thanks.
We covered large distances as a 5 man peleton, with each allocated a number. We never held our positions up or down hills. Thro the week, there were many polka dot jersey effort to top of hill, normally won by George or Dad, and some Green Jersey sprints, the most importantl & poignant of which won by Jack on the last day 10 miles from JOG. Martin was top of faffing league table at every single start & re-start. Hamish had more "cycling kit " options than my wife has shoes. He also managed to carry more (about 2.5kg) kit in his 3 jersey pockets than any other cyclist known to man. The most frequent peleton call was "hole" which tells a story about the state of our roads.
Average speed around 15.8 mph; average fluid consumption by Martin per day about 72 litres; number of YR navigation errors 5, including a 45minute detour trying to find the cycle path across M5 Avon bridge
Now being chucked off Hotel PC, so more to follow in due course...... R
No comments:
Post a Comment