Day 9 - Poole - Okehampton

Day 9
Poole to Okehampton
106 miles
3000m ascent

The night before, we checked over the route over a couple of pints and did not liked what we found. We had given ourselves 8000ft of climbing to do which is more than we have ever done in one day before. Even so, we were up early in good spirits ready to tackle it head on.

We set off at 9am but neither of us knew what was on its way. We had been cycling for 8 days and covered just short of 800 miles and our bodies were beginning to reach their physical limits. However, these 106 miles were enough to put anyone off cycling.

The first 15 miles went by without too much trouble and then we were welcomed to Devon by hill after hill. The climbing was relentless and we were running on very close to empty. We took advantage of every shop to re-fuel and try and find some energy from somewhere.

At around 5pm, we still had 45 miles to go and we took a 5 minute drink stop by the side of a busy A-road. We both crashed and before we knew it, 20 minutes had gone by. We knew we had to get going so we reluctantly threw ourselves back on the saddles and carried on.

We finally rolled into our B&B just before 9pm after nearly 12 hours on the bikes. We were both absolutely shattered and although we knew we were one day from the finish we were in no mood to celebrate as we both knew that the next day would be just as tough!

Nathan + James