Stage 2

Very limited ride data today, for some reason the Garmin 705 won't download the file properly and it seemed to be doing odd things during the ride with peculiar lines on the screen. I suspect that the problem might be heat related having been in direct sun in 35 degree temperatures all day, who knows, we will see what happens tomorrow. I'll see what can be recovered from it when I get home but in the meantime will post whatever data I have at the end of each day.

Felt pretty good for the majority of the day but the heat hit me in the last 90 minutes and I was also low on energy, it's really hard to eat enough when riding in these sorts of temperatures and I have never had a problem eating enough before! All I could do was keep plugging away and in due course arrived in Spa which seems a really nice town, though there is no chance to explore.

I've added things up and in total today I drank about 7-9 litres of fluid, a mixture of water and energy drinks and I still ended up dehydrated, I can't really see how I can drink more! All I can do is try to make up the difference back at the hotel.

So, all that said, though this has been a very difficult day, the 3 cat 3 climbs at the end will I am sure keep the pros entertained when they reach them. The main thing is, difficult though this has been so far, I'm really pleased I'm having a go at it and I'll do all I can to keep going. A guy in a garage said that the forecast is for it to get cooler, I really hope that's right.

Today's Weather:

Extremely hot, 35 degrees with a wind that was rarely favourable and felt like a fan heater.

Ride Time: 10:55 hh:mm
Ride Distance: 124.1 miles
Average Heart Rate: 129bpm
Average Speed - True: 11.35mph