Day 4: Karma Shmarma

Dorchester, Dorset to Dawlish, Devon

76.36 miles

So, here I was, having spent a fantastic night and The Birleys (Rick, Sally and Heather, thank you so much for you hospitality, and Sam and Mike, thank you so much for the organising and cooking a lovely meal) and I was feeling generally quite good about things. Had hit my timings yesterday and had no reason to suspect that today was not going to be the same – well, what do I know? Only 1.6miles into the days cycling, I was hit with the most mammoth of hills that I had come across yet, and it went on and on and on and on. This served to be my introduction to what was going to be a hard, hard day, and one that was going to challenge me far more than I had known before.

Let’s face it though, hills I expected, but the incessant rain as well – this wasn’t really fair. It’s becoming a common theme in these blogs, the rain, but when it’s about the only thing that happens in the day (apart from cycling, obviously) there arrive precious few other subjects that I can turn my mind to.

I want to take you to a specific part of the ride though. One that I had actually been looking forward to as I knew already that it was pretty flat above all else as I had ridden it before - the last 10 miles into Dawlish. The section in particular I was thinking of runs alongside the river and is tarmacced so not only is it flat but smooth as well, two things I like very much!

Anyhow, I turned onto this stretch with a renewed vigour and hope as I really was on the final stretch. What am I greeted with? A head wind to end all head winds. I’d battled driving rain, unexpected hills (at least unexpected in their ferocity) and chain issues (yes, beginning to come off more frequently than I might like, but maybe it’s my keenness of changing gears) and here I am, home straight in my sights and I’m hit with a sledgehammer of a head wind. What could I do but laugh? Ha ha!

I think to myself, what would help here? Who could possibly bring me back from this state of near despair? There was only one man that I could turn to – Phil Collins. On he goes onto my ipod and starts to work his magic. That is until I turn from the tarmacced path onto the tow-path (or should I say quagmire rather than tow path because of all the rain). Phil is bleating on about ‘something happening on the way to heaven’ when my back wheel flies from under me as I hit a ‘deeper than at first thought’ puddle of mud. I’m kicked off the bike (this time removing my cleats before taking the bike with me – I’m learning at least) and thrown into a pile of nettles! It seems that when you’re down sometimes nature just wants to give you a right good kicking!

You know what though, I made it to Dawlish by 7, had a lovely chat with the wonderful Gwen Brock whom I had gone to see to pick up the key to the flat in which I was staying (thank you so much Gwen and the family Hughes) and after a bit of a search to find the place (and a few choice words I might add) I settled down to a meal, beer and sleep that were amazing!

This is what I think – Tough days will come, and tough days will go, but the taste of that beer will last forever!

JF 27.03.10