A Day of firsts...

First time meeting some members of the CTC, my first ride to Honiton and our first time over the new bridge to the Science Park...

Today dawned grey and threatening and as we joined Kirby, Sue and Mike to ride out and meet the rest of the group, we were all clad in our finest waterproofs, but before we even made it to the start, we were already stripping off our waterproofs and luckily didn't need them again.

A large group had gathered at the airport, surprising given the other events going on today. A special shout out to Steph - hope you got on ok with your 100 mile ride today!!

I'd love to tell you where we went today, but I honestly have no idea! All I know is that we stopped at Escot for coffee where I had an amazing piece of treacle tart that set me up for the rest of the day. Then far quicker than I expected, we had arrived in Honiton for lunch. We sat outside the Church on some handily provided benches and enjoyed the sunshine whilst we tucked into our packed lunches.

After lunch the group split, with the keener members heading on to find more 'gentle climbs' and 'wonderful views from the ridge' whilst we opted to join Mike and Sue and head back home. We were definitely tiring and our progress was slow but steady on the hills, but after Daisy Mount we had a mostly downhill ride back into Exeter. The gentle climb up Blackhorse Lane proved a bit of a struggle, but a quick stop at the new bridge and finding ourselves on more familiar territory closer to home spurred us on to the finish.

We arrived home to glorious sunshine in the back garden (amazing, as our garden never seems to get any sun!) and found we had clocked up 46 miles. Not bad for our second training ride! We're halfway to achieving our 90 mile target...although I somehow suspect the second 45 miles will be far tougher than the first!