A Biting Wind

It was still dark when we gathered for our second day of cycling. The front of the hotel was a blaze of fluorescent jackets as other guests came down for breakfast. The previous evening had given us some maintenance time on our bikes followed by a fun group time. This included a quiz which much to my team's shock, we won! The rain subsided overnight and it was just a question of how cold the wind was going be. It was distinctly colder that our cycling through suffolk and essex. It ranged between 3 and 6 degrees C depending on whether we were in the open countryside and the towns. The wind was almost in our faces, a biting North Easterly. We were straight into the countryside our route initially took us over gentle hills with few hedges. After our first pit stop we cycled through the centre of Odense. Despite it being a large urban area the cycle paths rapidly conveyed us though to our lunch stop at a church on the other side. My morning had been jaded by a pair of punctures. Thankfully one of the support team stayed behind to keep me company. It cost us almost half an hour, but we made good progress and caught up the back markers. The last stint was the most gruelling. The wind had picked up and the temperature was dropping. Three of us teamed up and made good progress sheltering behind each other. Again coming into the finish we took a wrong turn. With the insurmountable obstacle of a railway line, we were soon able to find our whereabouts on the map and correct our error. To our surprise we arrived first of all the cyclists including those who had left early from lunch. As the last bike was being loaded onto the van, the sleet started to fall. In the relative warmth of the minibuses we transferred to our hostel for the night.