The night at the YHA went by very quickly. I woke up at 5am, slept, woke up at 6 again, fell asleep, then finally got up at 7am. Oli was already out and about and so was Damian and his girlfriend Andrea. Jorrin and Ian were still snoozing having sorted out cameras etc in the eve. The plan was to leave between 8 and 9am. I had porridge with banana and honey (huge pot) and some nice chai tea. I made sandwiches for the road knowing they'll come in handy later. Packing and getting the bikes ready took a really long time and Damian was getting very impatient as 10.30 approached. Whilst he was ready at 9am waiting for everyone else to get ready Jorrin had to fix a new rear cassette and various other bits and pieces.
This was the first time Damian and Jorrin exchanged a few harsh words as Damian wanted to leave asap whereas we all still messed about. Things we could have done earlier probably. The plan for the day was to cycle 6 miles to Landsend and start our journey from there into Cornwall, past the Eden project where Jorrin had arranged a welcome reception, a look around and food. We were also going to do 100 miles today, through the toughest bit of countryside England has to offer. Steep and frequent declines of between 10 - 20%. We finally managed to get to Lands End after Ian did a little briefing on cycling etiquette (waiting for people after climbs, highlight potholes etc). He did make an effort of bringing the group together.
We met Andrea at Lands End where many other cyclists also started out from, or arrived. We met a couple of guys who just arrived from John O'Groats, unsupported, in 3 weeks. We were planning on doing it in 10 days with support and 2 days camping - NO rest days, 100 miles plus every day.
We did a couple of short of the group leaving at Lands End and again, this took time, tensions among team members gre as we still dind't do any serious cycling and we were approaching 1pm. Damian has a Garmin SatNav mounted to his bike whereas Jorrin was using his map. We set out of Lands End and whereas the original plan was to go to the Eden Project, Damian already programmed his SatNav for our YHA in St. Just (some 90 miles from where we were). Going via Eden Project was going to add some 20 miles to the journey. We all followed Damian but it became apparent he wasn't going via Eden Project, Jorrin decided to split from the group and go with Ian to Eden Project.
Oli, Damian, myself decided to go straight to YHA St. Just as we approached 1.30 and still had 85 miles ahead of us. The Cornish countryside is really spectacular, especially on the bike. Zooming through narrow roads, up and down the hills through some stunning scenery. Green, green wherever you look. We passed long, white beaches sidelined with palm trees and lots of exotic flora left and right. The day started with a blue sky and the sun blazing down. We must have had close to 30C and were sweating a lot. We took water and water with sports formula to keep us going. The sports formula had so much sweetner(Aspartame) that my throat began to hurt and my stomach got upset. Whoever invented sweetners should be punished and this stuff forbidden.
We made painstakingly slow progress up and down the hills of Cornwall - in and out of small valleys, through the fields and mainly on the B roads, whereby avoiding the busier A roads. We got a little lost here and there as the Garmin was slow to respond or re-routed us a few times too often. This was really annoying as the main B road would be perfectly fine but the Garmin re-routed us on and off it on some smaller country lanes. We must have added about 5 miles on that day because of this.
At about 5pm we were all exhausted but still had another 25miles to do, at our speed another 2.5 hours or so. We finally got to St. Just but I almost didn't make it due to sheer exhaustion. I've never done a 100 mile day ride, which seemed to turn into a 150 mile ride in Corwall as its just up and down. I was physically and mentally dead by the time Damian announced its the last 5miles. I am not sure what kept me going.
We finally arrived in St. Just at 7.30. The YHA was directly at the cliff, overlooking the Atlantic ocean. The sunset was really magnificent and the friendly volunteers greeted us warmly. But what were we to do now? No support car, no change of clothes, no food, nothing. I couldn't be bothered. I was cold, exhausted, tired, hungry. I just had to lay down on the bed for 5min before having a shower, using the pillow cover as towel. I got back into my cycling clothes, wrapped the duvet cover around me and snuggled into bed. The YHA volunteers sorted us out with some chocolate bars, tinned soup and pasta. Damian made pasta and sauce out of it and little later called me and Oli for dinner. It was about 11.30pm when Jorrin and Ian arrived. I did not register much else that evening and went straight to bed, no brushing teeth, short good night, into the land of nod....
No comments:
Post a Comment