Day 9

Epic. Bath to Tavistock.....or at least it should have been. This turned into a bad day for team Chateau McGuire. I had a blow out at 30mph and we spent an hour fixing a puncture in the pouring rain - a trapped inner tube caused endless problems. A second puncture later on caused further delay. It pains me to say but Stuart was a hero. I had lost all patience and sense of humour. Stuart kept his head and sorted all the punctures and stopped me from throwing the bike in a hedge.

10 miles from Okehampton it was dark. Our road was a B road without lights and full of hills. I had the headlamp while Stuart picked up the rear. We couldn't see much and had no idea how long the next hill would be or which way the road would turn on the way down. We hit Okehampton after 11pm and started to make our way to Tavistock in the pitch black. After the first hill we thought better of it and got a taxi. Arrived at the hotel for midnight and had the same taxi booked for 6:30am to take us back to Okehampton to pick up from where we left off. A very hard day. 14 hours with the bikes.