So, having been rescued by our wives the previous day some 20 odd miles short of the hotel, it's only right that Day 2 started from the finish point of the previous day. Now this was a tough ask as we had already planned 130miles to Monmouth based on starting from the hotel in Okehampton. Now that would be over 150!!!
So after an appalling breakfast in the Little Chef next door - cold bacon, cold eggs, cold almost everything, we drove back to Lifton.
Early on we encountered a number of steady climbs that had us both glad we hadn't had to tackle the previous day. Plenty of huffing and puffing.
We made good progress and soon got back to the original starting point, but still 130miles to go. The longer we went on, the windier the route seem to become and our progress slowed dramatically.
A quick stop at Morissons in a little village I can't remember gave us a chance to grab some lunch and have a bit of light hearted entertainment to keep our spirits up.
To put this in real terms, just 2 mph less and hour would mean we could be 20miles away from our destination after 10 hours riding. We then thought we might get to Bristol and across the bridge into Wales ( Chepstow ) but the more we rode, the more the reality set in that even that wasn't going to be achievable. So a call to our wives to see if we could find alternative accommodation was quickly made.
Luckily they found a hotel in Weston Super Mare called Daunceys.
As we progressed Ric started having trouble with his hip and the wind was starting to take its toil on both of us, but more so on Ric. We had arranged to meet the girls in Bridgwater for a re-fuel but it didn't happen.
We new that before bridgwater we had a big hill to climb and was hoping to go around it but mis-judging were we where, we ending up on the road to it.
Ric was really struggling and admitted that he might be walking part of it.
Well, all I can say, is this hill was mega tough, especially after 80 windy miles in our legs plus however many we did on the first day. I went ahead and got maybe half way up because I turned a right hand bend after some seriously steep inclines only to be greeted by more uphill climbing to be done.
I'd had enough. I stopped to wait for Ric.
Ric, too had had enough and as he pushed his bike around the corner, coming down the hill towards us was our Rescue Team! We are so grateful to Graham at my works for telling us about Google Latitude, that they would never have found us without it. Quite an amazing piece of software that works even if your mobile is off ( or in our case dead batteries!! ) - so thanks Graham!!!!!
The meeting was quite emotional. It is a strange feeling this cycling hard. Only those that have done it will understand.
The girls had bought some pasta and other goodies from a Supermarket which we both tucked into gratefully. This seem to help Ric as he wanted us to carry on to Bridgwater, our original planned stop. So up the rest of the hill we went, albeit slowly.
The girls followed us up like a real support car too. Once at the top, the descent was amazing. The girls couldn't keep up with us!!! What a rush.
Tired after the climb but exhillerated at the descent we called it a day at Bridgwater, put the bikes on the car and drove to our new overnight stay.
Plenty of re-routing to be done for tomorrow, me thinks..........
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