I was in a fragile state when I started this stage. My confidence had been severely dented yesterday. If my sister-in-law and her lovely new toddler had not been meeting me for lunch in Okehampton, I don't think I would have made it.
Anyway, there were other pressures today: I knew I had to do more planning and I needed to start early as I was being met by my first co-cyclist just north of Bristol. These two pressures were difficult to reconcile. But, despite the late night, I got up at 6am and got the maps out and started putting more waypoints into the GPS. This allowed my to use the 'satnav' capability of the GPS to navigate in bit-sized stages. This was essential for this stage as otherwise the GPS would have taken my on the Motorway! It's amazing that a device aimed at walkers and cyclists cannot be told to avoid motorways!
Anyway, the first couple of this stage were the perfect antidote to the previous day. As the profile shows, I was cycling on level roads. They had also been recently resurfaced and were perfect for cursing in top gear! By 11am all the psychological damage had been repaired. I can do this!!
I was meeting Tricia at Whitminster which Tricia had described as being 'just north' of Bristol. It turned out to be further than I thought. But anyway we met up at about 2pm and I was in good form. Tricia had brought an amazing picnic. Lunch went on for a while! With 2/3rds of today's distance already done this was not too much of a problem and now I had company!
Download log file (text format): S04D03a.log
Download track file (Magellan MapSend format): S04D03a.trk
First of two stages today
Distance (miles): 74.11
Saddle time (hh:mm:ss): 5:10:39
Average speed (mph): 14.31
Max speed (mph): 32.8
Cumulative distance (miles): 279.68
Notes:
Click on the images above to see them full size.
For details of how vertical profiles were derived from log files and the structure of the log files see this posting.
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