Wet, very wet, almost dry and wet again!

Sunday 5th August

Well, today I really had to live up to my promise to be out on my bike come rain or shine! I don't think it would have taken much to persuade either of us not to do a training ride today. It was pouring with rain when we got up. The forecast confirmed there were weather warnings in place for heavy rain all morning so after much proscrastinating we just had to get on with it and go. We did however change our route as the route we'd originally planned involved a picnic lunch stop and no cafes on route to stop at. I was quite certain I wanted to go somewhere dry for lunch and get a warm cup of tea!

There was no let up in the rain as we headed out through Cowley to Thorverton. It proper bucketed down all the way. As we made our way up through Silverton and into Killerton the rain stopped and the sun came out briefly whilst we took a quick snack stop - it was to early for the tea room to be open :(

From Killerton we missed the road we'd planned to take, aiming to go for lunch at Escot. Instead, we found ourselves in Poltimore and decided that rather than going back, we would aim for Broadclyst and Whimple, up to Talaton and out to Ottery. It seemed to take forever to get to Whimple. We counted down every mile, getting wetter and wetter as we went and wondering what on earth we were doing out in such horrid conditions! As Escot was now out of the picture, we decided to head to Otter Nurseries for lunch. We were both feeling tired, cold and hungry, but almost halfway into our target for a 60 mile ride, we deserved a break! Here I discovered our panniers aren't very waterproof if they've been put on the ground in a puddle of water, so the warm dry jersey I'd been looking forward to changing into was very damp! My bar bag proved to be very damp inside too, so Ant took my phone and camera as his bar bag is far better (and way more expensive!) than mine. We enjoyed some lovely warm jacket potatoes, tea and coffee, but still felt very cold and knew we needed to get moving again.

Tea!

Coffee!

Back outside it was still raining and putting on wet gloves and helmets was horrid! Fortunately once we set off again, the rain stopped and we finally had chance to dry out a bit. From Ottery we seemed to make faster progress, out through Tipton and retracing our steps from last week in the other direction out to Otterton. Too full from lunch to stop for coffee, we carried on to Budleigh and then to Exmouth.

Exmouth is in sight

The gentle downhill ride through the lanes back to Exmouth seafront gave us just the break we needed. A quick comfort break and snack break in Exmouth and a check of the mileage. We knew we'd have to take the longer hillier route back to make it to 60 miles. So, determined to dig in and get on home, we sped off along the seafront.


Heading up out of Lympstone, the rain set in again, spurring us on. The hill out of Woodbury was rather challenging that late in the day, but we knew we'd have a good downhill ride once out the other side of Woodbury Salterton. Here we flew along and into Clyst St Mary. Only 2 more hills between here and home! We had to play 'snail slalom' across the bridge and up to the traffic lights - they were everywhere!

Then one last push for home. Just past the Double Locks we hit our 60 mile target and I punched the air with joy! I couldn't help but smile and feel incredibly proud that we'd gone out in the pouring rain and done our longest training ride yet. 61.85 miles at the back gate. Well done us! Do we deserve a gold medal yet?

Very muddy legs!