So, where have the last six months gone? They have really whizzed by, and I now have only five weeks to go before the start line at Loughton aiming to ride to Edinburgh and back within 125 hours!
Anyway, besides spending a little over five days on my bike I am also looking to raise money for two great charities.
To date, I am delighted to say that for St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth we have raised 49% of my target and 40% for The Brain Tumour Charity.
Hopefully, following a successful ride, the balance of donations will follow.
So, now to give you a progress report on my training, and the low down on two adventures that I have completed over the last few weeks.
As of the last day of June, I have completed year to date 3,755 miles and 278,317 feet of climbing, having spent a total of 293 hours on my bike since 1 January.
June has been a great month for fitting in long-distance rides.
Completing the coast-to-coast Chase the Sun
Starting on 18 June, I entered the annual coast-to-coast ride called Chase the Sun, you may recall I last did this event in 2019.
This time around, I was even more confident as I was riding with my daughter Rosie’s partner Marco.
We left Minster on Sea in Kent at 4:49 am, and although we did not see the sunrise as it was very hazy and humid at 18 degrees, both of us were looking forward to a fairly easy day in the saddle, mainly due to pretty flat terrain compared to what we are used to here in Devon.
It was exactly that for most of the ride, going through Bromley and Streatham was a bit hairy on account of cars and the stop-start nature of the lights, but soon we were heading into Surrey and our first check-in at Bramley which was also the 100-mile halfway mark.
Both of us felt pretty good and confident about getting to Burnham-on-Sea between 7 and 8pm, but sadly conditions changed for us. Firstly, the intermittent rain, which was quite refreshing to start, got more and more persistent. By the time we reached Wiltshire, the temperature has dropped right down and the wind had also picked up strongly, which just increased the chill factor. So, with no feeling in fingers or toes, the descent of Cheddar Gorge was pretty hairy!
Anyway, we finally made it to Burnham seafront at just gone 9pm having completed 206 miles. Fortunately, Marco’s dad and Rosie were waiting to usher us into their car, fix our bikes onto the car roof, and speed off towards Exeter with the car heater on full blast.
300-mile route to Admiralty
Exactly seven days later I was to find myself at Fish Strand Quay in Falmouth aiming to follow The Trafalgar Way, which is a 300-mile route to Admiralty in London.
Incidentally, this is a cracking piece of maritime history, and well worth checking out on Google.
Anyway, this time nine solo riders left Falmouth at 6am aiming to follow the GPS route and complete a number of checkpoints en route, following minor roads to Bodmin, Launceston, Oakhampton, Exeter, then the Jurassic Coast, followed by Dorchester, a sleep stop at Salisbury, and then on to London.
Regrettably, my navigation let me down and I made some school boy errors which cost me time between Bodmin and Launceston, anyway, I then got back on track and at one of the controls, I met a cycling buddy that I know so it was good to ride with him for a bit of company.
My plan was then to catch up on the lost time, hopefully, arrive at Salisbury for 2am, grab a few hours of sleep or rest, and then crack on for London no later than 5:30am on Sunday.
The decision to ride with my buddy was to cost me in the end as he started to really flag and deteriorate as we approached Abbotsbury, this was probably down to dehydration or just fatigue, but there were times when I was genuinely worried for him and we had to stop more often.
Eventually, we got to Dorchester, then Blandford arriving in Salisbury at just gone 4am very, very cold and weary!
The sleep control by the way was a rubber mat on the floor of a school gymnasium, but given my exhaustion, I would have slept standing up! The organisers woke me at 5:15am and made me a coffee and some jam on toast, which was nice of them. At that time, I was having reservations as to whether I should continue, mainly as I did not want the responsibility of caring for my stricken mate I was riding with.
So, with bloodshot eyes, I informed the organisers, reluctantly, that I would be withdrawing having completed 219 miles of the 300-mile route.
My mate on the other hand had made a miraculous recovery and was all suited and booted and ready to continue.
So that was it, I headed for Salisbury railway station, and he carried on riding to London. As I sat in the station waiting room, it crossed my mind to go after him but being sensible I would never have made the 2pm train that I had booked back home from Paddington to Devon, so it was probably the right decision.
On Sunday evening my phone bleeped with a message, my mate had only gone and completed the ride to London with one hour to spare – I couldn’t believe it!