Day 2 Golant to Exeter via Dartmoor. Hell on two wheels. The end of Cornwall, the whole of which was a roller coaster. And Devon, which hasn't been any flatter. Dartmoor was really hard and long but actually Cornwall was worse. We were really lucky with the weather. Our only actual challenge so far has been the hills and the distance. The weather hasn't clobbered us yet. Yesterday we had a little bit of help in the form of Polly, Tom's girlfriend. What an ang...

That was a hard day. 58 miles and all hills. I remember Ruth Gallagher who rode the whole last year and with whom I rode the Scottish leg saying that getting out of Cornwall was hard. Well, Cornwall and Dartmoor are the first two days and the hardest two days. Tomorrow is 85 miles and 14,000ft of climbing. I'm certain we'll make it. But have no idea in what condition we'll finish the day. We'll ride separately tomorrow to give ourselves the best chance of ge...

Lunch stop at last on day 1. 32 miles down and about 18 to go. It's blooming hilly in Cornwall. But the sun is shining and we've had good weather so far. Met an old friend on the route this morning. Scotty and his daughter came to wave us on and it was so nice to see a friendly face. Well, other than Tom's! And we've had our first "misunderstanding" ;-) I went one way at a junction, up a rather steep hill. Tom followed then met a local who said he was going th...

I'm writing this from the Penzance YHA (youth hostel). Seriously nice place. Decent kitchen. I'm ashamed to say we let them cook for us this evening. Really good food. Well, holidays are all about eating really, aren't they? We arrived in Penzance at 3.30pm and started our ride with a 10 mile pedal to Lands End. Boy was it hard! What a shock. The wind was against us, it was up and down like a yo-yo and I've had the last week taking it easy. It'll be a good warm ...

Well, we're off! Tom and I are sitting in 1st Class on the 10.06 from Paddington to Penzance. It's a sunny day and confidence is high. Confidence was not exactly high after putting all the luggage on the bikes and watching the tyres depress. Before we got on. I did suggest to Tom that packing the rowing machine and hair dryer was perhaps a bit unnecessary but he was having none of it. Cracking out the erg for a quick 5k half way across Dartmoor. That's internat...