80 Miles in two days. Phew! We all met rather nervously on the Saturday morning, greeted by the ever-enthusiastic Ed, who was the trip engineer and one of the trainers. Ed bounces everywhere. Or cycles. He's a bit like Tigger with a bike but taller and without a tail. So there was this gaggle of rather nervous women, twitching about the cold (it was foggy), their nervousness of wearing clingy lycra with padded bums, and the sheer terror of what lay ahead. I unloaded my bike and heaved a sigh of relief when Maggie promptly drove up the driveway. A familiar face is a blessing in these times! Maggie was promptly followed by Olive and the Caz and Ali who had the good sense to drive up the night before rather than on the morning as I had. Getting up that early means breakfast is not really face-able, and so the only sustenance I had before setting off on the ride was a banana. Not good.
Still, finally when Ed had gone round telling every one their tyres were too flat and pumping them up furiously we gathered for the prep talk by Trish. Trish was the group leader. A fabulously informed lady who obviously spends far, FAR more time on a bike than any of us did - and she isn't coming to Cuba! I think the only thing that Trish said that stuck in our minds, was that 5 miles in we would hit our first hill. Now on the Just Giving website there is a forum, where some of the girls go and chat. And even though I don't really go on there, the rumours had reached me about THAT HILL. Was this hill that Trish was mentioning THAT hill we all wanted to know? She wasn't sure, but did assure us the air would turn blue as we rounded the corner and saw it, which wasn't exactly reassuring.
So, we peddled off out of Lower Quinton, taking a nice easy 10 mphish, and feeling quite relaxed and reassured fora bit. We pulled over for a quick stop, shed some layers, munched some energy foods, then braced our selves. Oh lordy. Yes. That was a HILL. SERIOUSLY. Made Great Elm look like Holland.
Unfortunately the directions I have do not enable me to chart the route on mapmyrun to show you the true horror of this elevation. Suffice to say all of us swore. A fair few of us had a crack at it, some got off and walked, some (myself included) cycled the whole way but only by stopping and remembering how to breathe and regain the feeling in their legs every three minutes or so - it took 10 minutes to recover from each three minute stretch so this was fairly time consuming!
Anyway, sooner or later we all made it up. Somehow after that none of the other hills over the entire weekend seemed quite as bad. Cazzy, who has only really done training on the flat, managed to cycle most of them and we developed and excellent technique which involved a lot of shouting at each other to help get ourselves to the top. By lunchtime (we stopped at the Fleece Inn in Bretforton) Thing was dying. The chain had jammed once, the gears weren't changing up properly, and if they did the chain just slipped back off the cog it was meant to be on onto the one below. I asked Ed to have a look at it, which he did, before basically announcing the imminent death of Thing. Thing, I am told, has lived his life. Thing is exhausted, brakes are shot, gears are shot, too heavy, not worth repairing. I need a new bike. Thing was duly named by Ed, and henceforth known by the group as the Bike of Doom! (this has to be said with 'doom' kind of voice: 'bike of DOOOOOM!'. I have to say, although Ed reassured me that Thing (henceforth B.O.D. on here) would get round the weekend, it was a little harrowing to be hurtling down very steep hills very fast as the engineer who has assured your brakes don't really quite make the grade whizzes past calling "BIKE OF DOOOoooooommm" over his shoulder. Thanks Ed.
Saturday evening saw Olive leave us as she had the lurgy. I am now fairly confident she is responsible for giving me the lurgy I now have, as does Maggie. Thanks for sharing Olive! Olive did really well on the cycling, especially in view of the fact that she felt rough, but did seem to have something of a death wish just pulling out into the road without looking - a little dodgy even when one can hear oncoming traffic!
Saturday evening I did try to persuade Caz that after nigh on 20 years of friendship, and as she had experience one day of training on a decent bike, the decent friendly thing to do would be to swap. But she wouldn't. So I set my sights on Ali, who after all has asked me to be Godmother to her firstborn son, and so obviously cares about my future well being. She wouldn't swap either. Double Hmph.
Sunday morning I suggested to Ed that we had a group bike exchange, you know, to help everyone experience how it would be on a different bike. None of us after all, will be on our own bikes in Cuba. He said it was too late. Triple Hmph. Still I have to say, his tinkering did mean that BOD behaved relatively well for the remainder of the weekend, and he is going to offer impartial advice on BODs replacement, so he is forgiven.
I just want to mention Julie briefly. Julie came with Maggie, and they hadn't met before except online and are firm friends. Julie is even madder than the rest of us as she shaved her head and raised a whole lotta cash in the process. Easy fundraising. Emotional traumatic, but easy money. Way to go girl.
So here we are, Julie, Maggie, Caz, Ali and me, with (on the far left) Gwen who works for Women for Women and will be cycling round Cuba Twice. Yes really. Two consecutive weeks. She did the same thing in India and Egypt.
Also, I need to apologise to Everyone I met, cos I can't remember any of your names, unless I met you previously, or you teased my bike or shaved your head. I am sure, after a week together, we will all know each other REALLY well! Certainly seems to be nothing like a good few uncomfortable miles on a bike together to start women talking about intimate subjects!
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