Day 6 - Jedburgh to Northallerton

Utterly brutal. That's probably the only way I can sum up what today was like. I knew it was going to be hard but I can categorically say that the 171km from Jedburgh to Northallerton was physically and mentally the toughest thing I've ever done in my life.

I was expecting lots of climbing but perhaps naively thought it would be long drawn out slogs up to and around the Northumbrian national park. What it was actually like was a constant up and down with no, and I mean zero, flat sections. They were steep ramps up which is really draining which meant that the natural thing to do is to coast down the other side to recover a bit before the next one, but as the downhills were also steep you don't actually make much progress horizontally. The result of this was incredibly slow progress. I knew the route was 171km long but by around 11am I had only moved 20km and by 1pm I had only covered something like 40km. Less than a quarter of the distance. Bearing in mind that it's dark at around 1930-2000 and cycling on busy roads isn't ideal at night it was really hard to see whether it was even possible for me to finish the leg. All of this was compounded by the fact that there's been torrential rain all day and a headwind (again!) it was at best a miserable experience. By about 1630 I had reached Consett which left about 80km still to go.

Fortunately from that point onwards the landscape flattened out and I was able to finally make some decent progress. Desperate not to fail I got stuck in and finally made it to the campsite at 2030 completely knackered and soaked to the skin.

I'm very happy that I managed to finish this one as it was always going to be the hardest leg. Indeed it would be ridiculously hard to do being completely fresh let alone having ridden something like 550miles in the previous five days. I am so glad that's over.

The knees(s) are fine. It was painful for the first 20miles or so but after that it was fine.

Tomorrow by contrast should be the easiest day of the challenge. It's still 100+ miles but it's the flattest of the legs and the roads should be in good shape. I'm hoping for a slightly later start and a slightly earlier finish if at all possible.

Eyes can't focus any more so I'm going to get some sleep.

See you all soon

Rich



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Location:Northallerton