Day 7
Well dawn broke on our final day of riding and the pressure was on…….there was rather an important game of Gaelic football showing at 4pm which meant we needed to be at Mailin Head by 3pm to ensure we had enough time for the obligatory photos and champagne drinking!
One of the benefits in leaving Glenties at 7.30am is the lack of traffic on the roads! this meant that for the first 25 miles all you could here was the sound of bike tyres running along the very smooth Tarmaced roads……we were also treated to some breathtaking views of the blue stack mountains as the sum rose behind them……… Completely magical.
Our first stop was Letterkenny and it was a quick slurp of coffee before hitting the road again……we weren’t going to be late!
The next 30 miles saw us navigate some very iffy road surface and keen dog interest, at one point we did think one of them was going to follow us all the way to Malin!!. We made our way through Newton Cunningham and headed onto Muff and then Quigley point where we knew Ray and Rachel would be waiting….. having covered 60 miles we were all ready for lunch. As always the spread was perfect and we all tucked in making the most of the final tuck wagon dining experience.
The weather began to close in so we decided to get going for the last 20 miles…….the end line was in sight and we had just enough in our legs to get us there. The team regrouped in Malin which meant we could all ride in together……. Think Chris Froome and team Sky on the last day of the Tour De France………yep, we didn’t look anything like that.
So, the final push…….over the week the last 200 metre climb has took on legendary status and the team was beginning to this that rope and grappling irons might be necessary, they needn’t have feared as they sailed up the last hurdle in the same way they had approached the entire week, a smile on their face and pedal power in their legs!!
We had all made it to Malin with not one puncture to show for over 3500 miles of riding.
