OK. We are in Liskeard, which is about 250 miles from London. Check it out on Google. This has been the most excruciating, painful, difficult thing I have ever done. Without a shadow of doubt. Words cannot explain the suffering - hill after hill, 12-17% steepness, for 3-4 miles at a stretch. In three days we have climbed 16,000 feet. That is the height of Mount Kilimanjaro. The psychological impact is a key factor. You reach what you think is the top, and then the road turns and it stretches on for another mile, steeper and steeper. To add insult to injury, we have had a steady headwind since we crossed over into Devon yesterday. This is like Chinese torture. It drip drips the energy away from your body and slows you down to a crawl.
Day 1
The first day we left Heathrow in the rain and made out way to the New Forest. It was a beautiful ride. A few hills, but nothing too bad. 82 miles and most of us made it in 4-5 hours.
Day 2
The next day was a different story. We started climbing hills almost immediately. One after the other. Boom, boom, boom. I was doing about 3 miles an hour at some points, standing up on the pedals, just to get the wheels turning. We did 79 miles that day and climbed almost 7,000 feet. Lost a good 40% of our 40 fellow cyclists. Just too hard. We reached Lyme Regis after about 8 hours on the bike. The fastest made it in 6 hrs. Some spent almost 12 hours. It was gruesome.
Day 3
Today was even worse. We left around 8am and got hit by the first hill, which was a death hill. 17% straight up for about 3 miles. There were about twenty of them. Then we reached Dartmoor. That was when things got surreal. It was blowing at 20 miles an hour and you had hill after hill. Barren landscape. Only sheep bleating and you feel like you are going to lose it. The key is not to quit on a hill, get off the bike and walk. Once you do it, you are doomed. You have to keep pushing on, one foot up, the other one down, like the pistons of a slow motion steam train. We reached the top of the moor, had a couple sugar sweets and kept going. The top of the moor is not flat. It has dips and hills. This goes on for about 30 miles. When we made it to Tavistok, a picturesque market town nestled in a valley, we had another 14 miles to go, but it was very hard going. By then, we had been on the bike for a total of 7 hours. Everything hurt. A lot. Knees creaked, tendons were violin-string tight. Hands throbbed from clutching the handlebars and squeezing the breaks. Neck muscles were locked in a permanent spasm. And the ass. The ass is in a different category of pain. If it had a way of expressing itself through voice, you would hear a scream that would put Munch's masterpiece to shame.
Tomorrow is the last day. 79 miles. Then it is over. Oh, and I forgot to mention: we are having a lot fun.
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