‘Warm Up’ – Day 3

It took some persuasion but eventually everyone agreed to meet this morning at 5.30am for a 6am start. By 9am, we’d covered 30km and had a picnic breakfast. We were joined today by Julia, so our team was now five. Four cyclists and Julie, our cherished support crew of one. Despite the early start the roads were busy and didn’t make for particularly enjoyable cycling but getting a few miles under our belts before the temperature started to rise felt good. A stop in Chichester for lunch, where we ate at The Barn in Little London where we received the warmest welcome from owner Emma Schwarz and her team, the best lunch and lots of interest, donations and words of encouragement for our onward journey.

Until this point, it had been easy to clock up the miles, however, the transition from roads to cycle paths slowed us down considerably. The ‘paths’ were in places little more than a narrow, uneven, overgrown track not suited to two way traffic, certainly not build for speed and which required frequent stops but at least we were separated in some small way from the heavy A road traffic. Navigating the cycle paths added a little more complexity to this section of our journey and 40km of the remaining 60km were slow, tiring and hot.

A welcome roadside stop where we were met by Julie with homemade goodies, ice cold drinks, and when tiredness overtook us, somewhere to lie down for a quick power nap!

A long day today, made enjoyable and achievable by great company and fantastic support from our small team. Arriving in Worthing, our destination for the day, we were quickly joined by John and Roland who had made the journey from Cheltenham over two days. All credit to John who had been hit by a car when out training, only four days ago, where battered and bruised, he somehow managed to escape serious injury, unlike his bike.

A sociable evening where we were joined for supper by our eldest son, Callum and friends Maeve and Ray. Tomorrow, we will be joined by the rest of the team as we start the Brighton to Barcelona part of our journey.