This year's ride covered a route I'd been keen on doing for some time, a coast to coast, from Seaton in the south, to Watchet in the north and back again. Leaving an hour later than the previous year, the plan being to shorten the lunch stop, 20 Pedallers rode out of Seaton at 07:00 am. An hour later catastrophe befell one of our number when, in the tire tracks of Froomie, he crashed out of the ride. On the decent into Honiton, with a skittish back wheel, he lost control and was catapulted across the road. Having to be extracted from the scene via ambulance with a broken collar bone, we were reduced to 19 riders and our later start was looking less of a good idea. After the restart, we lost a further 3 riders, two having only planned to do a short ride and my RideLondon buddie, Jason, who foresaw a later than scheduled return.
Jason was right in his projection, 8,700 ft of climb, 2 coffee and one lunch stop, a series of punctures, a broken gear cable, an incident with a cow and a ravine to cross took its toll. Although we were 30 minutes quicker over the 100 miles, our idle time exceeded all expectations as we coasted back into Seaton thirteen and a half hours after our morning depart!
Check the video out for some of the highlights.
