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Cheers, yeah first mate is as tough as old boots and a mountain guide, so well used to camping and roughing it. That said he is out of shape for cycling. I’ve got him coming out for a 40km off road ride tomorrow morning which will hopefully give him some clarity. I’m also fully prepared for me to be the one completely humbled by it and crawling home.
Tonts
Well don't let me put you off. I'm a whiner and also hadn't really camped before. Also I have been off regular cardio since January, so that definitely will have contributed. That said my friend is much more experienced than me and was just off a tour on the Isle Of Wight, she didn't get as fatigued but also didn't find it a picnic. Last summer we were regularly managing 50km off road fenland rides on school nights, so we didn't think 75km hilly rides would be that much worse with 12 hours of daylight.
It's hard to say how much of a difference the ground conditions made, that was probably the biggest thing. Loads of sections that would have been possible to fly across if the ground was baked hard, but then again some of the ruts might have been slow going regardless? Some of our issues were just assuming the route would be kind of like road tours we've done in the past where you can end up eating so much cake you gain weight over the trip. You could easily be a bit more organised than us wrt carrying food etc which would help keep spirits up. There are also a lot of chances to just say fuck it and take a road. Most of the point to point locations are only about 2 hours on road (we kept on saying we would do this, and never did)
That said we didn't have any mechanicals (except for the last day where the puncture fairy arrived) so things could have gone a lot worse.