Page 15 - DLNjul2016-1008
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Borneo rainforest, just lush green mountains sat in the clouds. It was a
remote section of the ride, and when plotting it I could see I was going to
have to rough camp the first night as there was no accommodation
options… but i had anticipated sleeping in a grassy field under the stars.
The reality of being soaked to the skin and sleeping out without a tent was
not so pleasant. I found a leantoo of a derelict building to provide some
shelter from the rain and laid out my 6.99 decathlon sleeping bag with a
foil blanket over the top. As you can imagine, damp and cold, i got little sleep
but I told myself that my legs were resting. Oh and i was joined by a rodent
by my head during the night scuttling across my foil blanket which scared
the life out of me.

Day 2…
And still it rained!! First task was to get off the mountain, and the descent
took 2.5hours. I was exhausted and it was only 8am. The major difference
with this race to transcon, is how exhausting the concentrating was. every
second i was watching each stone, puddle, mud rut, wondering what's the
best line, asking myself should i walk this bit. then pushing the bike. your
wrists take a hammering stood up with your weight on them for 2.5hrs, plus
coz i was so nervous I was incredibly tense which is also knackering. On the
road bike you can just get on the tri bars turn your music on and just peddle
at least. Plus navigating on the mountain bike was more intense as the turns
came thick and fast so you had to be watching the garmin constantly. Once
off the mountains, I was on the first of many of the famous white gravel
roads of Tuscany and it was a pleasant rest bite from all the technical stuff.
Next was Florence. despite being there for less than half an hour, i loved it
and defo want to go back. Navigating through the city sights along with
thousands of tourists was a time consuming process but a novel one that
i greatly enjoyed. After Florence the sun came out but so did the hills. The
hills that you think of when you think of Tuscany. With beautiful mansions on
top every one, with the tall slender trees lining their driveways. It was
stunning, but seriously steep!!! up and down, up and down… I was suffering!!
By 5pm in the afternoon I had little left to give and the only saving grace
was all the men i was cycling with were finding it equally as hard and pushing
their bikes up and over rocky paths, wading through fords, and battling to

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