Bad Kreuznach, to Marburg. 111m today.

945m total.

Well, are we glad that’s over!

The final run in today was awesome.

Everyone was up for it today, its amazing how knowing that its your last
day fires you up. We had a flat start but soon the hills returned.

Another road changed into a motorway leaving us to find an alternative
route and we also had a road closure going through a National park that we
decided to risk – it worked, luckily!

Friedberg was also interesting as there was a massive demonstration that we
had to navigate our way through, at this point in time we are not sure what
it was about but 500 riot police meant that it was particularly sensitive!

Our final lunch stop was with 70k to go. After 5k there was a puncture,
actually a ripped tyre. Using an energy bar wrapper as a temporary band aid
we were soon back on the road. 5 of the team were then left to chase back
the main group who had disappeared into the distance. Eventually we were
back as one unit and under normal circumstances they would have been
exhausted with the extra work but this was a special day!

5k outside Marburg we were met by representatives of the Twinning Committee
who guided us in to the Town Hall. This was a great honour but the route
took us up a ridiculously steep cobbled road right through the main town
center through all the narrow lanes full of shoppers and tourists. Our
shouting, cheering and singing certainly drew attention.

At the ‘Rathaus’ were greated by a crowd from the Marburg cycling club and
Twinning team and the Marburg Mayor. The local press took photos and then
we were whisked upstairs for speeches, drinks and food. This was a real
time for reflection on our achievements.

At this point we were still all in our cycling gear, special arrangements
had been made for us to use the local sports stadium changing rooms. 20
mins later, we were a lot more respectable. Instincts then directed us to a
bar where beer, Jagermeister and speeches were the order of the day.

As we scribe, we are currently on route to Gent, our overnight stop on
route for the UK where we have a welcome home reception at Collingtree’s
Wooden Walls, Sunday afternoon. Estimated TOA at Gent is midnight.

Rider of the day was a 3 way split between Dave Williams, Richard Sturt and Ironman Wayne, well done to all 3 of you.

Team member of the tour was won by Gary Haynes, well done Gary on keeping everybody amused on the rides, looking after everybody’s bikes and also for your strong ride’s each day.

The riders would also like to say a BIG thanks to Andy, Murph and Fred, what a fantastic job you did in looking after all of us and keeping us going through tough times.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at 7:30 pm by wayneb and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.