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Exmouth Exodus 2009 |
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A challenging overnight ride of 101 miles about half of which were in atrocious weather conditions. |
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End to End Take 1 |
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End to End Take 2 |
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Dungeness-Durness/CW |
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Dunwich Dynamo |
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Exmouth Exodus 6/7 June 2009
After a really enjoyable ride in Exodus last year I was very keen to repeat the experience this year but in the last few days running up to the event the weather forecast became progressively less encouraging.
I had met Stuart half way through the event last year and we had made email contact in the run-up to this one. He was pretty sure to go as he had sponsorship for the Gurkha charity and I was keen not to wimp out anyway. My wife Daphne and son Andrew drove me to Bristol and we quickly met up with Helen and Stuart at Channings Hotel, the starting point in Clifton.
Stuart and Helen live in East Devon and had driven to Bristol in appalling weather conditions. It seems it had been raining heavily all day and they only ran out of it near Clevedon. So Stuart and I set off just before 9pm knowing something about what we were cycling towards!
In view of this we put on all our protective clothing right from the start, which doesn’t make for the most comfortable cycling. The easterly wind helped us to Clevedon but with only the odd spot of rain we were overheating in the wet weather gear.
After that for the next 45 miles the rain was torrential and unremitting. It’s quite a challenge to cycle in the dark in such atrocious conditions, mainly because the lights are less effective |