Clip in and start pedalling.
Looking out my window however I feel like making a getaway and maybe faking an accident so I don't have to do it. It is thick fog and pouring rain !!!
After a hearty breakfast of the largest bowl of porridge I could get, 2 yogurts, 1 banana, 3 coffees, 2 rounds of toast and a twinky ! and final checks I was ready for off to the sign at Lands End !! Sorry Sunny Bank B&B but there is an old rucksack in my room with the discarded clothes of an 1980's painter and decorator waiting for you !!! hehe
Nobody here but me ... the bright orange middle aged man in lycra !!
A real pea souper... I met an RNLI captain at the B&B who warned me about riding my bike on the A30. Loads of deaths apparently !! Great !! Didn't really need that right now. Thankfully I had my 5 lights and the brightest orange jacket known to man.
HELP !!!!!!!!
THE FAMOUS SIGN !!!
Yeah, you might be smiling now matey !!
The official sign which you pay to be personalised and have a picture taken next to. Closed as it is only 8 o clock !!
The money shot... thank you to some other early starters who turned up just in time.
You will never guess what too. The rain stopped at 8:30 AM !!!!
Off I Go !!!!!!! 9 AM Monday 20th July 2016 !
So my route was an easy one today. A30 all the way to Bodmin...
My plan was to get today over with. I could have taken a wildly romantic route through some of the prettiest villages on earth but I chose the dreaded A30 instead. So miles were eaten away and half the route completed in about 3 and a half hours.
Coffee stop. Need 2 hands for this monster cup. I know I have only met at this point around 10 Cornish people but they seem very nice indeed. I really wish I had more time in this beautiful but very rainy and foggy county.
Quite a bit of climbing today. The things I had heard about Cornwall were coming true.
Your finger got in the way of this pic, go back and take it again you numpty !! This is actually the very last view I had of Cornwall over the bridge at Gunnislake. The next shot I took when I turned around was Welcome to Devon !! I wonder what the hills of Devon are like, can't be any worse than Cornwall can they !??
Beautiful county. Weather was picking up a bit, not too cold either.
Two Bridges in Dartmoor, this is one of them....
Dartmoor is stunningly beautiful, but one of the hilliest places in the UK. No bikes are allowed on the A30 east into Exeter as apparently the police and ambulance people are fed up of scraping pieces of us off the road, I don't blame them. So Dartmoor from Tavistock is the only way to fly.
I had done 89 miles to get to Dartmoor so was feeling a bit knackered.
I know I may have mentioned this in very early posts on this blog but an additional challenge I gave myself was to try and climb some of the Top 100 Climbs in the UK. Dartmoor has 4 of them !!!!
This blog explains more... http://cyclinguphill.com/100-climbs/
Sorry for technical info here but a climb is measured in distance (how long it is from the bottom to the top), the height it climbs in total, average gradient (the important number as this tells you how steep it is on average) and the final number is the painful one. The maximum gradient... this is the one that scares all cyclists as it tells you how much pain and suffering we will really feel as our heart rates climb faster and faster the harder we have to try and stay upright going up a really steep bit. This is usually where you can count your heartbeat rising and pounding in your ears towards 3 beats per second and you get a bit light-headed.
For example, a gradient of 10% is hard. This means that the road rises 1 metre for every 10 metres travelled. So lets say you measured your stairs at home and you move 1 metre forward and you have climbed 1 metre high that would be 1:1 which would be 45% which would kill a cyclist stone dead !!!
Hope you got that now, I will be doing a quiz later. Any questions, see me after school bell. Here is a graph to help.
Todays top 100 climbs....
No. 11 Rundlestone - the first one I met straight out of Tavistock up to the top which is 9 km long with an average gradient of 4%, but maxes out at 15% !!!!! and climbs 346 metres into the sky. Nice !!! It was not too bad at this gradient there were times of really low gradual rises but some steep kicks in the middle. The best bit was getting to the top and turning around as you can see virtually the whole of Cornwall behind you.
No. 8 Dartmeet - I knew this was going to be hard. About half way across Dartmoor you drop down through Two Bridges into beautiful Dartmeet village, cross over a cattle grid and straight away the road bends towards the sky. Average 11% for 1.1 km climbing 125 metres but highest grade is a massive 18%. It seemed like this was the whole way from bottom to near the top. This was really painful.
Next was a detour north to try to find the one which was the worst and the scariest of all... Widecombe. I went to a book signing and evening at The Marches School in Oswestry the week before with Debby to see Chris Boardman which was absolutely brilliant. Love this guy, great ambassador for the sport. He still holds the uphill climbing record on this road climb from 1990. He did it in 4 minutes 10 seconds !!! I reckon I could give him a run for his money (NOT)
But first of all I had to find it. I stopped a nice friendly Asda delivery man in his van who also happened to be a cyclist. When I told him where I was headed he tried to talk me out of it. Which is kind of the worst thing you can say to a cyclist. It's like saying don't look behind that curtain or don't press that button whatever you do. You want to do it even more then !!
Anyway, he said head down a really really steep hill towards Ponsworthy and then do a left towards Widecombe. What he didn't tell me was that I had a 17% climb to do out of Ponsworthy which was worthy of being in the book itself !!!
No.10 Widecombe - You know that feeling you get of hope that it won't be as bad as predicted. Well, I had this feeling and I was proved.... wrong. It was painful. As I got closer my heartbeat started to rise in anticipation. Why is this. Just the thought of a bit of pain and suffering ignites some signal in your body to prepare. Widecombe is 1.4 km long, climbs 532 feet, averages 12 % and has a max at 22%. Say no more !!!
Last one which I have to be completely honest I kind of did but it doesn't count was No. 9 Haytor Vale. I went down it !!! I was going to turn around at the bottom and go back up and down again but I did not have the energy. It is a stunning climb though. 5.4 km long drops down 335 metres, average 6% max 12 %. this is the final hill climb in this years Tour of Britain Stage 6 in September.
Views of Dartmoor
Ponsworthy...
Stopped to take a pic of this lovely pink cottage. There was a nice lady cleaning her car outside it and she apologised and ran to move her coat and bucket out of the way so I could take this pic. Lovely people in Devon too.. I asked her if she was preparing for the Giro d Italia when it comes through Devon but she didn't get the joke as I suspect most of you won't either. Google it !! hehe
My big mistake was stopping as had I not been so in awe of this lovely pink house I would have noticed that I was just at the bottom of that 17% hill I talked about. Trying to clip in your shoes into the pedals whilst going uphill is very hard and I nearly fell off.
Widecombe...
It was getting very warm now especially as I had just done 3 big climbs so I jettisoned my faithful bright orange jacket. I put it in a bin just to the right of this picture. Farewell, you have served me well and I pray I won't kick myself later as the heavens open.
At the top of Widecombe... Don't worry Mr Boardman, your record is very safely intact for a few years yet I reckon....
Haytor Rock...
Downhill to Bovey Tracey.... this was sweet. No pedalling, head down and I might have screamed WEEEEHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!! all the damn way.
My oasis of peace and calm at the lovely home of Bridget & Geoff in Bovey....
She even made me my dinner, bless her cotton socks.
Talking of socks, mine might need a wash. So I then had to hand wash them alongside all my kit in a bowl.
I had a look at the stats on this day just today and although I cannot quite believe that I did the whole thing now looking back I also cannot quite believe that I did such a lot of Day 1. Note to anyone doing lejog. Do not under any circumstances do what I did. I rode 115 miles, climbed nearly 9,000 feet, burned off 7382 calories and did 3 of the UK Top 100 Climbs. Madness !!!
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