Day 1 - continued!

The second round of rides continued with some familiar themes. Rain, undulating hills and rain. To be fair it did stop raining at times, but it always rained enough on each ride to soak the rider and make them feel like the others were having better weather!.

Dave started the second round and after passing him once. We sat at a junction and waited for him to come past a second time. After waiting 20 minutes there was still no sign of Dave and having seen lots of riders on this stretch with punctures we were beginning to think Dave had joined the casualty list. We started to drive back to see if he was in trouble and tried him again on his mobile. After three failed attempts Dave rang us back. Somehow we'd missed him at the junction and he'd passed us and was now a long way ahead. We turned the van around and set off to find him. When we finally caught up with him Dave had been riding for over an hour so we looked for the next place to stop and Marc took over.

Marc made good time and by the time he passed on to me we were coming up to the half way point. My ride started without rain which was a welcome change and gave a chance to look at the countryside around. We were riding through lots of farmland, woods and little villages. The roads were mostly quiet - apart from 70 British cyclists of course and the fleet of support cars following their progress!

My ride continued up some some steep hills with some welcome long descents. The hills were nothing compared to what we knew was ahead of us on day 3 but they provided a hard workout nevertheless.

As I clocked 10 miles on my ride our support van drove past and shouted out some encouragement. Then just as they disappeared out of sight there was a bang from the front tire and I ground to a halt. We'd all agreed that if we had a puncture we'd just ring the support van and do a quick rider change so we could keep making good progress while we fixed the puncture. With that in mind I picked up my phone and tried to make a call. A beep beep sound from my phone soon told me there was no signal so I was just going to have to do a repair myself. It was a long stretch of road through some woods so it probably wasn't a surprise. However help was never really that far away as every cyclist and van that went past would stop or shout to see if you needed any help or tools.

As I started to change the inner tube the heavens opened and the rain came down. It felt heavier than it had been all day and it made changing the tyre that much more tricky. I found what looked to have caused the puncture and pulled a small flint out of the tyre.

Just as I'd finished the repair our support van appeared. They'd assumed something was wrong and had headed back to see if I was ok. The bike was ready again so I carried on. Three more miles down the road and the van passed again. Then just as before as the van disappeared from view there was a bang a hiss and my front tyre was flat again!

Fortunately this time there was a mobile signal so I was able to call ahead. The van was just at the top of the hill so Ben jumped on his bike to start the next leg and we put my bike in the back to fix on route.

Ben's leg was comparatively quiet in comparison and he claimed the prize for the first ride without rain. By the end of Bens leg we were approaching two-thirds done for the first day. Just one more leg each we hoped and we'd be ready for dinner.