Day Seven - what rest day?

Fortunately the campsite we are in just to the south of Wurzburg caters well for waifs and strays who have willingly imposed severe heat exhaustion, hunger and beyond tiredness on themselves so there is no need to venture out….i honestly don’t think I could have anyway even if I wanted to.

Given the monstrous, truly horrific impact of the heat on our ability to sustain basic human functions let alone cycle over the last two days, we need a plan.

Ideally that plan would include cycling through Germany in a hermetically sealed, highly insulated and air conditioned bubble contraption (as I am writing I am genuinely thinking that yes Nick, that would be the perfect plan but then realised I am essentially talking about a car!).

Day Seven is traditionally a TMAAT rest day however, also traditionally, we have in fact very rarely actually taken them. Usually that is either because we have fallen behind, or something further along the line has cancelled or changed or just that we are feeling very, unjustifiably so, cocky about not needing one. This time we definitely really do need one but we also cannot continue to ride 80 plus miles a day in this heat and there are several more to come in the plan. Oh by the way we do actually have a “plan” but our experience over the last few days has called to mind the phrase “every one has a plan until they get punched in the face” ….our plan has effectively been repeatedly punched in the face, kidneys, solar plexus and “down belows” to the extent we definitely need a new “plan” and perhaps some sort of “box”.

Several of the planned days ahead top 80 miles and three of them are over 100….that is simply not going to work. Instead then we elect to use the rest day to break up at least the next two days into three…thus giving us at least some hope of making it and staying friends.

Part two of the new plan is to leave even earlier today in the morning to try and beat the worst of the heat and we also know there is more climbing today and so we are up and gone before 630. Fortunately it does make a huge difference and we manage to dispense with the first of the climbs relatively easily and then even pause for some smiley photos and the most epic ice cream sundaes either of us have ever seen around 11am with a chunk of the miles behind us. It’s also the case that because the sun is lower in the sky at this time of day there is more shade. We pause to pick up supplies in Neustadt (note to self do not buy croissants that need finishing in an oven when you are on cycle trip…yes we did try leaving them on the back of the bike!).

As the day draws on though inevitably the temperature rises, the shade disappears and things get tougher and tougher, we get slower and slower and we stop more and more frequently.

Eventually we do roll into the outskirts of Nuremberg where we pause at a ginormous bike store to pick up some replacement cleats for my cycle shoes which are ruined (yes Marc, alright I have brought the wrong shoes!).

The Garmin seemingly contrives to take us the longest possible way around Nuremberg, around a massive ring road rather than through the centre so we have no clue at all whether to recommend a visit or not. We finally end up at our campsite near the Nuremberg stadium and settle in …some of us get more comfy than others much more quickly.