Day 4 took us from Richmond to Stokesley a ride of 35 miles. This was in principal going to be the easiest day of the ride. The first 20 miles were pretty flat and the hills were tamer and less imposing than those of the first three days. Day 4 would also see us leave the Yorkshire Dales and finishing in the area between the Dales and the North York Moors.
So we got up on a nice bright sunny morning in very high spirits and after a lovely fried breakfast. We gave the bikes a good clean and headed off expecting a pleasant day in the saddle. Little did we know how the day would unfold and how much it would test us physically and emotionally.
The first puncture of the trip happened on the main road just before we turned off onto single track country roads.
Apart from this, the day was going fine. Scott even managed to find alternative transport on the side of the road. This children's toy is worryingly in scale with Scott though. Maybe he was actually riding a children's bike as well.
We were really knocking off the miles quickly and talk of an early finish had already begun. The countryside was pretty similar to the previous day and we were making such good progress that I didn't bother to stop and take too many photos, until this happened.
Ant and I let our guard down, started to mess around and our bikes got tangled together and we both went over the handle bars. I have never felt such a feeling of shock in my life. The highs of seeing the Lakes were matched by the lows of this accident. I dusted myself down and apart from a lump missing from my shoulder and scraped knuckles, I was alright.
I did have big indents in the back of my helmet and that definitely saved me from more serious injury.
The worry was Ant. At first it was the fact that he'd lost a good bit of skin down his left side. We cleaned him up using the first aid kit that we had taken with us. The real issue came when he got to his feet and there was pain in the lower half of his right leg.
After some stretching we recomposed ourselves, got back on the bikes and took it in turns to help Ant along. We still had 25 miles left to go and it became more and more of a worry that Ant was not going to make it to the end of the day.
Luckily the majority of the day was on road and the climbs not too big, in comparison with the first 2 days.
Anthony did even managed to complete a really tough off road hill. The photos below do not really do that climb justice.
I'm not sure what actually got him up this hill, given that all of us had to stop and walk at some stage. I think that it was a combination of determination, bloody mindedness and the fact that he couldn't walk by that stage.
We all just wanted to get to the end and the one thing that we didn't need at that stage was a climb that meant carrying the bikes over pretty rough ground. That's exactly what we got. We rode to within 5 miles of where we thought the end of the day would be and the track just stopped. Scott and I went first to check out whether Anthony would even be able to walk up the hill. It was at this stage when the words 'mountain rescue' first crossed my mind. Hywel then followed with his and Anthony's bikes and Buzz followed with Anthony dragging himself up the hill, a walk which started in the valley of the picture below.
Finally we all reached the top, with Ant's leg pretty much useless by that stage.
We managed to get back on our bikes from then on. Every bump in the off road track seemed to send pain through Anthony's leg. Luckily it was all down hill to the finish.
However, the hotel was not where we had thought it was going to be. Somehow we had programmed the GPS incorrectly. We had an extra 9 miles to go to the hotel. We called Jane out to pick Ant up in the van and the four of us set off on the 40 minute ride to the hotel.
I got to the hotel totally shattered and really upset with the events of the day. We had set off as a team of 5 and I wanted 5 to finish. It was becoming more and more evident that only 4 of us were actually going to finish. I was totally gutted by the whole thing.
We finished the day with Ant on crutches and in a lot of pain
A visit to Accident and Emergency in Whitby on the following day showed damaged ankle and a torn calf muscle. A later visit to hospital in London also showed up a ruptured achilles tendon. All this makes it more and more amazing that he managed to complete 25 miles after the accident.
click here for Day 5