Dover Durness Day 6: Crook to Ford (Etal)

Distance today        93 miles in 7hrs 38mins
Height Climbed      6873 feet burning 2663 Kcal

Distance so Far       498 Miles  in  36hrs 47mins
Height Climbed      21269 Feet Burning 13932 Kcal


I enjoy the traffic free nature of the recycled railway lines, but the surface can be variable. Today I spent the first 18 miles on a railway line which went from gravel down to fines which is smooth but quite slow and needs effort to move along, to a short section with large lumps of stones pretending to be cycleable. So the first 2 hours were run off at just under 11 miles an hour: unhelpful when there are annother 70 or so to go.

Once off the railway line the hills start in earnest. The route created on the Garmin website suggested just over 4000 feet of climbing. On the bike it was just short of 7000. Oh good.

There were big hills and rolling hills. Whatever power I had for hills went days ok. It is just sit in a low gear and peddle. It gets me there in the end. Not pleasant on busy roads though.

The route was better today. I think there was more variation in the landscape. I started in arable, moved into cow country where the land went from brown to green and then up to sheep country.

I didn't notice the wind really. It was there, but I think it was behind me all day.

The problem with rolling hills and straight roads
is as you come to the top of one, you can see the downhill but look ahead and there is the hill to go back up. This results in going as fast as possible down the hill, and then trying to get up the other side as far as possible before having to put some effort in. There was one where I managed to get back up and over the top of the next hill without peddling on the uphill, and it was quite a big lump too. Made me smile.

There was another puncture today. I could feel something wasn't right and some bouncing on the bike revealed a soft front tyre. I kept going as Passepartout was waiting up the road. I came into a small estate village with a corrugated iron village hall in light green with a covered porch with two tables and seats. That will do. I sat, had a gel and set out the wheel. I had messaged ahead but Denise had no signal so came looking for me. It then rained so we had a sandwich looking out at the rain in the shelter of our porch. It stopped and I went on. Only rain today. How lucky was that?