My mate Scott (in the blue above) and I had decided to ride the event this year on my touring tandem for a bit of fun and a jolly fine ride we had too, I spite of the weather.
The North Sea looked spectacular up at Seahouses and it was blowing a gale but in spite of this people had turned up in their hundreds for this excellent charity ride, I believe there were something like 1800 starting places sold.
Pretty chaotic and slow for the first few miles simply because of the sheer number of cyclists on the road but it was all very good natured. It has to be said that the motorists we saw were generally pretty understanding and I heard no angry horns blaring.
We put up with the usual good natured banter tandem riders get from other cyclists and had some fun burning a few people off who thought it would be nice to be towed all the way down to Tynemouth by a tandem, sorry guys! ;-) It just a fun ride but it's impossible to resist opening the throttles on a long flat road! :-)
Pleased with how my fitness is I think coming back as I felt I was able to push on pretty well for the whole of the ride and we averaged over 23mph for 60 minutes in the late stages of the ride, must have been the wind behind us!
Anyway, finished the 54+ mile route in 2:35 at an average speed of just over 21mph which is pretty Ok for a couple of guys who have never ridden a tandem together before and were on a heavy touring tandem complete with the pannier racks, mudguards etc.
Terrific training ride, great fun, thoroughly enjoyed it :-)
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