29th April 2014
In a first of a daily blog about the #backfromboro, Glovers employee Jim Healey describes day one.
This morning we gathered at The Riverside Stadium to start our ride back to Huish Park. A ride that will see us all cycle 334 miles over 4.5 days.
I was glad to be placed in the fifth group (aka the slowest group, or as out leader Martin calls us Elvis and the fat boys).
We set off first and after about two or so miles we reached the first hill of the day. All went well until someone in the group shouted "car" we all thought they shouted stop. Having to stop on a hill is hard and getting restarted was even harder!
The ride today was very picturesque with some great views across the open fields and along some nice quiet roads.
After a feed stop at 26 miles we set off for the next 25 where we were due for lunch. Vegetable soup with a couple of sandwiches were consumed by all (more on this later).
We set off after lunch to complete the last 25 miles of the day. It took a while to get going after lunch, but once we all got going we actually overtook another group, much to the delight of everyone in our group.
One highlight of the day was a member of our group taking offence to a very keen cyclist overtaking us at about 30 mph. He chased him up the road for about a mile before overtaking him. The cyclist swore and put the after burners on to escape.
As we went through Linton we all commented on the sizes of the houses and how nice the village was. Little did we know what was to come.
Looking at my Garmin it said we were up to 64 miles, going well I thought. We descended down a hill, and what goes down must go back up. The first hill was okay (ish) but the second nearly saw the vegetable soup from lunch time make a reappearance!
The last five miles seemed to drag on a little but everyone arrived safely at the hotel in Leeds ready for some R and R.
To sponsor Jim visit his justgiving page by clicking here.