As promised, now that our total has frankly obliterated the £600 barrier (including Gift Aid...), here are some pictures with an account of the day:
We set off about 8.50, a frankly ridiculous time to be getting on a bike on a Saturday morning, following a send-off from Graeme, Melissa and the girls, and quickly made our way into the 'péloton' heading back up towards Rayleigh Weir and into Rayleigh itself, skilfully negotiating the main roundabout with ease, if some fear and trepidation on my part, though V was far braver and headed straight up the hill!
Marshalls had been placed along the route, ostensibly to show you the way, obviously, but also to provide encouragement and, later in the day, tell you just how much of this absurdly-long ride you'd got left. The first one, in Rayleigh, was incredibly enthusiastic when we passed her. Whether she remained so later in the day or whether the Red Bull had worn off I cannot tell you.
So, we soon settled into a pattern, V setting the pace and me behind, winding through some of the towns and out into the Essex countryside. Thankfully the weather was great: a bit of sun but not too hot, and no wind to speak of. After about 20 or so miles we had our first minor altercation, when my front wheel clipped V's back wheel as we headed round a corner, and I failed to stick to my aim of avoiding falling off. Battle scars to prove it in the attached photo...
A few miles later and we picked up what I guess was the cycling equivalent of a casual jogger in the middle of a marathon, with some bloke cycling back from work in Danbury to Maldon. We chatted as we rode the 4 and a half miles into Maldon town centre before he departed and after 31 miles we stopped off for lunch, randomly some morris dancing and some much-needed treatment for my very poorly knee...
In fact I actually felt a bit sorry for the poor St. John ambulance folk: I was their first casualty of the day and all I wanted was just a wipe to clean up the graze and my tears, but they had to fill out an A3 sheet detailing exactly what treatment they'd given me just so I couldn't then go back and sue them!
After fuelling up on fruit and chocolate, we started the homeward leg of the journey, by which point the early sun had gone into hiding to be replaced by a bit of a breeze and grey skies. Thankfully though, there was no rain, and the sun later came back out to such an extent that I got sunburnt arms and V sunburnt hands (as she was wearing her ever-protective fluorescent jacket!).
I got a little bit ahead of myself when we got back to the Rettendon turnpike, remembering it had only taken us about 30 minutes on the way out before realising, 30 minutes later when we still weren't back at Little Havens, that we weren't going back exactly the same way we'd come out. Curses.
After what seemed like an interminable climb back up the many hills of Leigh-on-Sea and the outskirts of Southend (no, I never knew there were many either) and nearly getting lost with about a mile to go as we got confused by the lack of signage to take us around, instead of through, the local golf course, we eventually pulled back into Daws Heath Road, thinking we were home and dry...
Unfortunately, neither of us had realised that there was still a bit of uphill to go. Now, at this point it's probably worth acknowledging that this was hardly the Tour de France, and we weren't exactly scaling the Pyrenees, but after 59 miles, knowing you'd only got about one mile left to go, to find out that was uphill, albeit a fairly minor climb, is pretty disheartening!
But eventually we turned back into Little Havens and crossed the start/finish line, in a total cycling time of 6 hours and 6 minutes.
Although I might have made this sound harder than it was, I think I can speak for both of us (and I'm sure I'll be corrected if not!) that we really enjoyed the opportunity to see some of the beautiful countryside and were more than willing to suffer sore knees and behinds to raise some money for what is a very worthwhile cause.
Many, many, many thanks to all those of you who sponsored us for the ride - give yourselves a very big pat on the back!
If you're reading this and haven't done so, you can still get to the sponsorship page by clicking 'donate' on the widget on the right. The page will be there for a little while longer.
