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Sunday 20 September 2009

Day 1 - Friday 11th September

Well.... we all met at Police HQ on the Thursday night ...loaded the vans and after a long drive arrived at the Premier Inn at Whitehaven about 2130hrs... unloaded the bikes from the BikeWise trailer and then Andy & Bron Huddleston had to drive all the way back home for work the next day !!
0830hrs and we all met for breakfast.. it seems such along way back home on a pedal cycle !!
By now Ray & Andy were in 'full flow'... plenty of comments 'flying' around and yet they both showed tremendous restraint when the waitress asked them how many sausages and bacon they wanted with their breakfasts :-)
Eventually it was off the the sea front and we were there... wheels in the water and raring to go.
With plenty of encouragement from Cath Hayward, Phil Hopps, Dave Cuthbertson, Ray John & Andy Parker we were off.... like 'speeding bullets', 'racing snakes' or could it have been more like tortoises........ Day 1 took us from Whitehaven, Cleator Moor, Rowrah, Lamplugh into the Lake District National Park where we hit our first big climb, up the Whinlatter Pass where we met the support team who had set up 'base camp 1'..... Jaffa cakes, banana's and plenty of tea & coffee. Mr 'Absolutely Average' must have had a word with someone about the weather because it couldn't have been better.... almost tropical. From there it was downhill to Keswick where we 'took over' the market place, drank Latte's & Hot Chocolate outside of Java and then made our way East, towards Penrith via the old railway line, under the watchfull 'eye' of Blencathra via Threlkeld, Scales & Berrier, where some of us met the support team who by now were well into the routine of sitting in their deckchairs, reading the newspapers and verbally abusing us 'poor' cyclists :-)
Onward for the last leg via Greystoke, into Penrith and eventually to Cumbria Police HQ about 54miles.

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