Day 6

The day started perfectly. Great weather, a good breakfast and we were on our way from near Manchester to Ludlow, about 110 miles. We knew that the first part of the course would be easy as we cycled through the Cheshire Flats. The highlight of the day was a massive hill in Shropshire called the Long Mynd. We had been warned by the organizers to pace ourselves and make sure that we had enough “gas” to get up “The Long Mynd”. The problem with this hill was that it came 90 miles into the ride when we were not at our strongest. So at about 3.00pm this afternoon we rumbled over a cattle grid and looked up at the near vertical climb that stretch off ahead. Generally, it’s pretty bad form to get off the bike mid-hill. If you are a proper cyclist you recite “pain is weakness trying to get out” as a mantra under your breath multiple times and get on with it. David is very strong on steep hills and generally finishes well ahead of me but as I looked ahead, up the hill, I could see he was in trouble. He said to me afterwards that the hill was so steep that the idea of pulling his brakes to stop the bike rolling backwards was an option while he was still standing in his pedals trying to head up. And then the collective ignominy of it all….we ended up off the bikes pushing the whole show up hill. David even took his slippery cycling shoes off and walked in his socks to get more traction. It was a vaguely comical sight and the only consolation was that no one else could stay in the pedals. What goes up must come down and the heat generated by David brakes exploded the inner tube in his front tyre during the descent. Luckily it was so steep that we were both travelling gingerly at the time so it was a drama not a crisis.

Only three more days to go and for the first time we seem to be getting a little stronger rather than weaker so we are (almost) looking forward to tomorrow.