The solo bike kindly lent by Bike Adventures was great - thank you Kim - and I set off with Martin – a fellow adventurer - while Stu sorted the tandem. It’s now more than 24 hours since I completed that day so it all now blurs into a mass of rain and hills with some idyllic little Devonian villages thrown in along the way plus the Quantock Hills to finish us off at the end – but mainly a very long wet day – we got into the base camp at 7.45pm having set out at 9.30am.
We did stop for an interesting coffee at the Three Pigs in Crediton (at 9 miles) and for a more bizarre lunch at the 4 and 20 Magpies in Tiverton (at 24 miles) where we were told as we arrived that we’d have a long wait because they hadn’t recovered from the previous ‘wave’ of bike adventurers who had just been through. They actually managed a soup and pot of tea fairly quickly when they saw our dire condition.
The sweepers, John and Graham, and Big Nige, caught up with us there and did some gear and tyre adjustments on my bike to improve its performance – shame no similar tweaking could improve mine. Martin’s jokes helped pass the time –or did they add to it ? ….just joking – I’m really grateful that you helped me through so that I can say I did the whole distance. We squelched in (at 61miles) to be greeted with a cream tea at 8 in the evening – it tasted great and I needed all the calories I could get.
The solo bike kindly lent by Bike Adventures was great - thank you Kim - and I set off with Martin – a fellow adventurer - while Stu sorted the tandem. It’s now more than 24 hours since I completed that day so it all now blurs into a mass of rain and hills with some idyllic little Devonian villages thrown in along the way plus the Quantock Hills to finish us off at the end – but mainly a very long wet day – we got into the base camp at 7.45pm having set out at 9.30am.
We did stop for an interesting coffee at the Three Pigs in Crediton (at 9 miles) and for a more bizarre lunch at the 4 and 20 Magpies in Tiverton (at 24 miles) where we were told as we arrived that we’d have a long wait because they hadn’t recovered from the previous ‘wave’ of bike adventurers who had just been through. They actually managed a soup and pot of tea fairly quickly when they saw our dire condition.
The sweepers, John and Graham, and Big Nige, caught up with us there and did some gear and tyre adjustments on my bike to improve its performance – shame no similar tweaking could improve mine. Martin’s jokes helped pass the time –or did they add to it ? ….just joking – I’m really grateful that you helped me through so that I can say I did the whole distance. We squelched in (at 61miles) to be greeted with a cream tea at 8 in the evening – it tasted great and I needed all the calories I could get.
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