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Jayne's Extreme Bike Race

In last months D.L.N I included the first few days of Jayne’s ride but I
thought it would be nice to hear what her cycling partner also had to say,
so here are both of their reports plus a few other comments and photos. Ed.

- SOOO much harder than I expected first day to be. broken
carbon frame meant yesterday was stressful and no time for sleeping.
Amazing start at midnight on the Muur lit up with flame torches, nerve
racking but exciting! ...But having had no sleep 4 hrs in we were both nodding
off on the bikes... which is a terrifying experience! 5 hrs in the torrential rain
and gale force winds started. Making tired eyes close even further, squinting
the best we could to see anything at all. 9 hrs in the rain stopped and we
hit the vast agricultural plains, not a hedge in site, and we spent the next 6
hrs fighting against a cross wind that was taking the bikes across a whole
lane of traffic, and I was forced to ride the bike heavily tilted into the wind,
which means I am well and truly knackered ...in fact beyond knackered!!! Jayne
is just a machine on a bike and hopefully has the patience of a saint, as she
has to wait for me constantly!! 325km done, now for bed.

so I didn't pick the best route for today, stunning scenery,
perfect Tarmac and no cars, in fact we didn't see more than 3 cars for first
100km. But today was hilly for tired legs. Straight roads that went up and
down like rolling waves. It was mentally sole distroying. Last 100km was
flatter but our overall average speed was down a bit coz of the hills. 2) After
yesterday's 17 hrs on the bike with wet shorts, I found that when I took them
off last night I took an awful lot of skin off with them! So today has been
fuelled by pain killers so as to sit on the saddle. 3) Jayne's knees were hurting
her, which we concluded was her mountain bike shoes SPD's as they don't
have the float of her normal cleats. So at lunch she removed her cleats and

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