The Sunrise Express is the sister ride to the Snowdrop Express and follows the same route, albeit in a clockwise direction as opposed to the anti-clockwise. We rode the Snowdrop last year – post here. Anthony and I arrived dead on time 20 minutes late, and Martin and Andrew were already ready to go. As we got ready we told them to set off and we’d catch them up.
The weather was pretty windy and it seemed that heading south took us straight into it, so it was quite difficult in the flattish and open countryside as there was little shelter.
3030ft ascent
After about 20 miles as we rode down a lane we spotted Martin walking out of a field. Anthony swore blind he saw a sheep smoking a cigarette behind the hedge! We pushed on and left Martin and Andrew.
The first café stop was at 30 miles and was at the side of the Avon. Very nice scrambled eggs and a couple of cups of coffee whilst we waited for the other two, who unfortunately had punctured following a hedge clipping tractor.
Martin was sporting a strange light contraption on his helmet which earned him the nickname Davros as it looked like a Dalek hat.
EXTERMINATE!
We briefly chatted to a new clarion member walking her dog outside the café before setting off again. It soon started raining and very quickly got very, very wet. I’d removed my mudguards because they were rubbing my tyres and I regretted it as I gradually got wetter and wetter, muddier and muddier and colder and colder. A brief coffee and cake stop later and we pushed on to try to finish. At the end I couldn’t feel my toes or fingers!
Ride stats : 76.65 miles in 5hrs 1m @ 15.3mph. 3030ft climbing, average HR 134bpm and 3646kcals energy used
Strava stats here
Sounds a good event. The weather was hard yesterday.
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