Day 5

Day 5 brings back the hills! I this case the big climb of the day is Shap Fell and then into the Lake District.

The day totals 116 miles and 5558ft of climbing. The longest day so far, but possibly not as hard as day 1 – although wind and rain could make Shap a little interesting!

Update

Well we had a surprise in the rider briefing last night.. A certain Sir Dave Brailsford spent half an hour on the microphone… Apparently, one of the crew literally bumped into him in a local hotel and asked if he would mind saying a few words.

It’s not often in life that you find yourself in the audience of someone who has genuinely been pivotal in changing something that you are passionately interested in.. And whilst Sir David is not a talented cyclist, he is the man behind both the resurgence of British Cycling in Olympic terms over the past 12 years and also responsible for Team Sky and their recent spate of Grand Tour victories…

When it come to cycling, Sir David is God! It was a pleasure to hear from him

Anyway, this morning I awoke to the sound of raindrops bouncing on my head.. It was hammering it down and had been on and off all night.

So, it was time to prepare the rain gear and get ready for another soggy day.

The first 30 miles were through the built up areas of Wigan, Leyland and Preston… In the rain… In rush hour… To say the least, this was somewhat entertaining and slow – dicing with traffic!

However shortly after leaving the first pit stop at 35 miles it stopped raining and the sun came out.. I even stopped for a photograph….

We then carried onto the next pit stop and then the big climb of the day – Shap Fell – a long climb out of Kendal all the way up to 1,400ft…

After that it was pit stop 3 and the final 25 mile drag back to camp – 116 miles in total.

Tomorrow we leave England and head into Scotland.. I hear its hilly there.!

Further Update:

Unfortunately, due to personal reasons, I have had to abandon the ride at the end of day 5 and have returned home. It’s the right decision – I can do this ride anytime in the future, but I feel for now that I need to be at home.

I’ve enjoyed the ride – it’s proven to myself that I can ride 100+ miles day to day without too many issues and that I’ve even coped with the camping and beimng within the RAB Bubble (I’m not really a “bubble” kinda guy but I think I sort of managed to fit in!!)

I’d like to thank Deloittes and Threshold for the amount of support they put into this ride – the logistics and organisation involved in getting the best part of 1000 people and their bikes from camp site to camp site, the logistics on site (from food to showers, toilets, medical, massage and even laundry srvices ) and the support during the ride (outriders, medical, photography, feed stops and the broom wagon!) are all monumental. The fact that once we are on the ride, you stop thinking about how it all happens is testimony to how superbly well the ride is organised.

As to whether I’ll be back – I don’t know… Never say never.

Would I do anything differently if i did it again… I’d probably pack a lighter bag for one! (the hardest thing day to day was the lifting of the bag to and from my tent – and this is no joke!!) . I know I was as well prepared as I could be and wasn’tt suffering any cycle related injuries day to day. I learnt that my new saddle can probably be improved and further experimentation is required in this regards. Beyond that, I was happy with everything I did both before and during the ride.