Steve took over the role of masseuse this morning which was to his delight! My legs were in bits and the stairs were a real struggle but we set off in good time and got to Gloucester (13 miles away) in a little over 40 minutes - we had a good burst of energy and were flying along. The gates were shut at Kingsholm so we had a quick photo and then headed off towards Bristol.

This section really killed me. My 'gooch' was really hurting and my mind was telling me so many negative things that I thought we were never going to get there. It was good to ride past a group of 5 or 6 people who cheered us on from the side of the road. Thanks very much to you guys if you read this, it gave me a a good energy burst for about half an hour which I was in real need of! About 2 and a quarter hours later we started to come into Bristol and headed down to a closed Memorial Ground where we met up with Michael Stephenson, a former Newcastle Falcon who now plays for Bath. He had borrowed a bike from one of the Bath lads and looked as if he was ready to have a nice little ride into the city of Bath.

Again ridiculous hills and Stevo seemed to think that Steve our driver had made sure that we were being made to do harder riding but on a shorter route! I think I would have prefered to have gone a bit further and have a flatter ride but we didn't so there was nothing I could do. We seemed to be getting good support from the rugby fraternity in the region and had a few waves and a shut across from the other side of the road of "come on Tom, keep going" which was fantastic. Thanks! 

We made it to Bath about 4pm and caught the end of the England Barbarians game in the hotel reception.