These are excerpts from Aug 2009…
SUN. 75 miles Bath to Taunton
Never staying in a YMCA again.
Up at 6:00, walking round Bath at 6:45 – the place was like the first scenes of 28 days later, not a soul around. Went back for toast and tea and waited for the others to arrive. Set off on a beautiful day towards Glastonbury, we met some other cyclists and Marrsy was determined to race them – luckily for me I got another puncture so we had to let them go, me and Brend were like Laurel and Hardy again, absolutely useless at everything, so we sat on the verge and had a little drink and bite to eat whilst we watched Marrsy swear at my wheel.
45 mins later another puncture – this time for Marrsy, we had run out of inner tubes (as I hadn’t brought any and Marrsy only had two), so he had to use an old one which was patched, again me and Brendan clowned around unable to do the simplest things, so sat down and watched Marrsy sort out his puncture – this had made us about 45 mins behind schedule… After pausing slightly for Brend to pull up his shorts we were off again..
Next area of cycling goodness was the “Mendips”. These are “some hills”, that we had to cross, well – they may be hills but yet the approach we made was long, long and steep. Marrsy led the way as always, me behind and Brendan keeping it real at the back, well we hit this hill and we saw from the amusement of the cyclists coming the other way it was going to be hard.
After about 7 hrs of climbing I heard some grunting coming from behind me, it was Brend – he was struggling Yeah, Yippee, WooHoo – obviously instead of giving encouragement I just told myself I don’t have to pretend its easy for much longer, he is going to fail!!! I kept on Marrsys wheel, my legs were burning, my knees where killing, I could hardly breath – but I wasn’t going to give up, no way – Brendan’s shouts of anguish were sweeter than honey, he’s going to stop – he is going to stop YES! he stopped. Brendan’s will had been broken, I had won – just got to make it to the top now, I did it!!!!.. However, once Brend put his feet down I heard a very quick and regular tap tap of his feet against the tarmac – he was pushing, but moving up the hill quicker than i could cycle – disaster, to be overtaken by a WALKER!!!!! SO with the last remaining energy I pushed for the top, and beat him by about 2.3 seconds. AT the top Marrsy changed the tyre again – my and Brend relaxed in the sunshine.
We got to Glastonbury around lunch time, and a decision had to me made, Yeovil or Taunton, after some debate we decided that although 35 miles away the trip to Taunton was flatter and Phil had agreed we could stay at his house so once Brend got his shorts in order off we went.
For me, this is where it got painful – I got brufen, had a few, but both my knees and derrière were pretty sore now, but the trip was pretty flat along the canal path, and we made pretty good time.
We arrived at Phils around 18:30, after a quick shower we headed out for a beer and a ruby murry. When we got back Phil showed us to our luxurious quarters for the night, well when I say luxurious what i really mean is shithole, unfortunately for us Phil was midway into decorating, the midway point being strip everything away and make it smell like plaster and death, he had kindly put two matteresses and two duvets down – obviously forgetting key stage one maths where 2 into 3 dont go (unless you like close male company of course) – we compromised and I slept on the floor leaving the other two to comfortable feather stuffed heaven sent mattresses (I didn’t mind…. ;o()