Day 7 - A sting in the tail

As the Cisco guys have now sorted the Broadband, we'll start off today's post with a photo of Claire from yesterday afternoon after one too many Regos.

Claire managed to bag the local park bench

Today's stage was the shortage of the ride at 91 miles. A week ago, 91 miles would seem like a ridiculous distance to cycle but as everything is relative and as we've been cycling for 6 days, everyone was talking as if it was a short jaunt. However, there was 2,500 metres of climbing with a killer climb at mile 89.

As the forecast was for yet more solid rain from about 11 am, our strategy was to get to at least the second pit stop before the rain started. We set off with the 'bald guy with the orange helmet' group but after a couple of miles, the Deloitte A Team flashed past us and we decided to see if we could keep up for a few miles.

The miles we now have in our legs must be doing us good as we could actually keep up. After about 20 miles, we overtook the 'guy from Google' (turned out to be Matt Brittin, Google's UK Chief) group and stayed with the combined group until the first stop - 30 miles at a blistering average of 18 mph.

The second leg saw us tag onto a couple of other groups and apart from a 5 minute downpour we made it to the second stop without getting too wet.

With the sky now looking very black, we set off on our own for the final leg and crossed the Severn Bridge into a huge headwind with 'Simon the Builder' who's builder like frame gave us a little protection.

Then, we did our good deed of the day outside the White Heart Inn in Iron Acton by sorting out a direction sign that had been turned the wrong way by a pesky local.

All sorted now

We soon got to the final couple of miles and the killer climb which obviously called for 'close up whilst climbing' picture number 23.

Slightly cheating as it was actually from yesterday

Anyway, we finished the climb and got to the finish at an average of 15 mph just before the rain started, and now, 3 hours later, with people still finishing, it is still raining.

Unsuprisingly, the forecast for tomorrow is more rain, but as it's only showers, it should be a good day. Final photo of the day is of one of the most important places on the ride, the drying room.

Haydock Park's bar full of wet lycra