I forgot to mention in yesterday's update that we both had some major issues with technology. Andy's phone packed up and my garmin to record all my rides died. This lead to some sulking for most of yesterday evening. However, when we got back late last night Andy suggested putting the garmin on the radiator to which I replied in appropriate nature which I will not repeat on this PG13 blog. However, at my wits end and no other solution other than to run out first thing in the morning to buy a new one a first light I gave in...
....then BOOOOM! The garmin jingles started ringing out after about 5 mins of heat. My night was complete!
Under way on the road by 8 we set off for the Roman town of Bath not knowing really what was ahead. The day started again with rolling hills and some tasty climbs. The weather was reasonable though and made a real difference to the spinning. The climbs and miles passed quickly and with a full English as my fuel I felt good. We came to the village of Bickleigh and it was a beautifully quaint little place however two things to note happened here. Firstly, as we stopped for an energy gel I walked over to a picturesque river running through to gaze at it. At this time a doddery old couple in a car started reversing to allow another drive pass them on a very small road. Once they reversed though they caught the back tyre and you could hear the air being released. They pulled off quickly without me having the chance to let them know but AJ said "let's go quick" before we spend an hour fixing this. I wasn't sure this was the right thing to do but....hey-ho. The next extremely strange thing to happen was that Andy beat me to the top of massive hill that lead up to the castle in Bickleigh. I can only put his intense climbing down to the fact he really didn't want to fix the puncture on that car.
At the top of the castle we powered along more rolling hills and small sceneric roads that were filled with fog and mist that made for great photos and creative GoPro action.
Before we knew it we were approaching 50 miles and the hunger started to set in. From the 50 mile point we called next nice looking place for our tucker.it took 5 miles but we found a cracker of a place called the globe inn in Milverton. Eyes bigger than belly scenario took over again and we both ordered more food than we could manage. Once we were paid up the Nicole Kidman lookalike barmaid filled all 6 water bottles for us and we were ready to attack the second half of today's stage.
Straight back to hill action as if I thought it would be anything else! The only thing that was keeping me going was a hill I have wanted to tackle for a long time and my most eagerly anticipated section of the whole 9 days of LEJOG..........Cheddar Gorge.
It took a few stretch stops and energy gel stops to reach Cheddar Gorge. We finally came within range at 90 miles in to the ride. Not exactly how I had envisaged taking on a hill of my dreams after blasting 90 miles today and after finishing 108 yesterday but I was still up for this, even with 11kgs pounding on my back. I love Cheddar Gorge as a place and have fond memories of it from recent times and as a child so I think that is why I was looking forward to it so much. At the bottom of Cheddar Gorge Andy didn't feel great and needed a few minutes to pick up the energy levels and compose whilst I was chomping at the bit. Once we set off I got in to my spinning motion and enjoyed every single piece of road on the way to the top. Nice switchbacks, varying gradients, different road widths and grazing mountain goats made me all a little too excited. I reached the top of the 7k ascent (part of the 100 Greatest Climbs) in decent time considering all the factors and once there I had a huge adrenaline rush which helped for the last 20 miles home to Bath
We had a major problem once at the top. We were out of daylight! On a tough ride home with more hills we had to suffer darkness and didn't reach the hotel until 7.30pm. This tainted the day a little but lots of things to learn from this.
In summary it was a really long and tough day with far too many hills!
Here are the stats:-
Total ride time = 8hrs 28 mins
Distance = 185kms
Calories burnt = 4897
Elevation = 2384m
Bath to Ludlow tomorrow.
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