Day 1- 100 miles down as the Three Musketeers

I am back if not a little jaded, bad mistake not taking today off as holiday. Nearly fell asleep whilst undertaking a presentation! Everyone was asking how I was and I could hardly keep my eyes open let alone muster up enthusiasm to describe the weekend. After a couple of black coffees I discussed my adventurous weekend with some and told others I would write a blog.

Now I will let you into a little secret. I called the blog a charity cycle challenge not a charity ride because if I hyped it up a little I would get more sponsorship. I thought it would be relatively easy to get the mileage done as I had cycled similar distances previously, little did I know what I was letting myself in for. That was the actual reason for not booking holiday, I had even planned to cycle into work today.

Most organised people would have looked at the route. I even pasted the elevation on to one of my posts which another participant had kindly worked out. To put into comparison of how hilly the route was and to give you a fact that will come in handy in pub quizzes of the future, Everest is 8848 metres high and over the weekend we climbed 7000 metres.

So I will start the adventure from the beginning. I woke up Friday morning a little nervous, the choice of fuel was four eggs (scrambled), a bowl of porridge and a black coffee. After consuming my petit dejeuner I picked up my pannier set, filled my hydration pack (placing it in my rucksack) and cycled up to the downs. Despite probably living closest to the downs I still managed to be 15 minutes late.

Trust Steed

Now if you read my previous blog I said a suggestion would be for the organisers to hand out stickers to give to people to make it easier to remember participant's names. They went close, they handed out labels for your bike with a emergency contact number and it had your name on. However, the organiser looked for mine and when flicking through I saw the label Louis James. This reminded me of when I was younger and knew a cheat on Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES, I wrote into Total magazine, told all my friends and when it got published I was devastated the letter was from Louise Day aged 9. Anyway I could be Louis James for a weekend.

It was 7:15am, a little tired I mingled and talked to a few people as I thought would be more enjoyable to cycle with others rather than on my own. I worryingly noticed the number of carbon road bikes and how many people had cleat shoes and spd pedals. Then suddenly I found someone with trainers like me and mentioned that fact, only for them to say they hadn't put their cycling cleats on yet because they didn't want to get them muddy, oh well. I then introduced myself to a guy called Tariq we agreed to cycle the morning together. 10 minutes before everyone was due to set off the Evening Post photographer arrived to take a group photo which I will check this week for any coverage. He wanted an action shot of all 34 of us setting off on the grass in a line, which was a recipe for disaster especially as I nearly took someone out with my bar-ends.

We set off at 8.15 after a briefing from the organisers explaining the route, where we were going to stop for drinks breaks, dinner and a few safety suggestions. Me and Tariq left together, the traffic in Bristol was busy but eventually we got to the countryside and on our first real hill when we came across a man complaining of slight cramp we asked if he wanted to cycle with us and thus created the 3 Musketeers. We continued onto the waterbreak in Glastonbury where there were endless supplies of Bananas, Energy Bars/Gels and Jelly Babies. It was a welcomed stop to fill drinks bottles, to use the facilities and also a chance to ask one of the mechanics to have a look at my drinks bottle cage. It was rattling and stopping me from utilising the top chainset of gears meaning I was having to cycle more revolutions than necessary.

The Three Musketeers

We were getting in a formation enjoying cycling as a group and made it into lunch together it was then when I realised what his name was, as we had stopped I took the opportunity to introduce myself and Tariq to Richard the third Musketeer.

The morning's session was relatively flat apart from the one hill, after lunch was a different proposition altogether. From Dulverton onwards to Exmoor, there were so many hills it was untrue, it really took it out on me and I struggled with some of them when me and Richard decided to segment the hills using points in the hedgerow. One of the biggest hills got too much and when we got into Barnstaple at 5.45pm we confessed at what we had done the organisers said it was sensible to walk to save the legs for Saturday. One other highlight of the day was when we stumbled across a load of bikers who offered to toe us, unfortunately we had to decline as it wouldn't have been fair to all that sponsored us.

When we got in (to the sound of my clown horn), had a recovery Lemon n Lime drink we checked into the Premier Inn, at this stage I had used so much energy up I couldn't even remember my name and one of the organisers had to write my room number 63 on the back of my hand. At this point I met my room mate Jonathan he asked me whether I wanted the double bed or single I didn't mind, he said as I was taller I could take the double, I didn't complain. I watched the local news whilst he had a power nap, at this point I was to find out he snored!  We later went down to have dinner as a group, I had two pints of Guiness to help wash down my Prawn Cocktail starter and Chicken Fajitas by this time I was exhausted and retired to bed to get a good nights sleep to prepare for Saturday.