Wisman's ride-photos up.

A great day was had by all yesterday. Weather was absolutely fabulous, if a bit 'taters in the morning. The sun shone, there were dry bits to ride on past most of the puddles, I took enough food and drink, and the babelfish worked well to translate Donal & Phil's Scottish diatribes.

I think there was enough variety for everyone, with a big hill first up, some nice waterbars on downhill to the Buddhist retreat, challenging rocky firetrail, and some nice countryside on the gravel/bitumen road finish through St Albans back to the ferry. All up this is a good track to do if you want to feel what a big ride is like because you do all the hard stuff up front-the last 55k's is easy riding which allows you to focus on getting through the mental challenge of a long ride.

I would advise taking plenty of tubes, zip ties and a knife, just in case your tube & tyre explode. As mine did about 35km in. Thanks guys for lending me various zip ties & gu packets.

For their first big ride, Tom & Lozza did phenomenally, and it looked like Tom could go another 100. Donal & Phil are long distance legends anyway so this was just a training run for them!

Photos here http://nobmob.com/image/tid/1227

I enjoyed this ride so much I think I'll do another one of them in a couple of months. Next time we'll aim to get to the caff in St Albans for a cuppa...