Page 31 - QARANC Vol 15 No 1 2017

I can honestly say that I had never had the ‘pleasure’ of sitting on a road bike up until the point where I received a call from CNO(A) suggesting that I might be up for a “bit” of a challenge. It had always been my intent, as with so many things, to join the road bike gang at DMS(W); however, for one reason or another I never quite got there. For those of you that don’t know, the challenge, also known as Exercise DIAMOND CHALLENGE, involved cycling from The Palace of Holyrood House in Edinburgh to Buckingham Palace with HRH The Countess of Wessex. Her Royal Highness undertook the ride as her ‘Duke of Edinburgh Diamond Challenge’, a special initiative marking the 60th anniversary of the DofE’s award scheme by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. People of any age were asked to take on a DofE inspired challenge and try something new whilst raising money for and promoting, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
The team consisted of seven cyclists, HRH The Countess of Wessex, a PTI from The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst whom she had trained with and representatives from four of the Units to which she is affiliated: 5 Rifles, RAF Wittering, Corps of Army Music, and the QARANC. The seventh member was the head of PR from Boardman Bikes...and no we didn’t all get free bikes! I must also mention the support team who were genuinely awesome. From making sure our bags were in our rooms at the various stop overs, cleaning and tinkering with our bikes, setting up for lunch, daily massages (of the sport and very painful variety!!), cleaning our sunglasses (yes they actually removed and cleaned our sunnies as we finished each day) and of course finding the essential cake shops on route; they had everything covered.
So, never one to shy away from a challenge, I jumped at the opportunity without any consideration for the amount of time, effort, expense and not least of all pain that lay ahead. The term ‘all the gear and no idea’ springs to mind when I think about the many visits to bike shops in my attempt to purchase the seemingly endless list of cycling gear. The critical bit was the bike, as I said having never sat on a road bike before the whole concept was completely alien to me. The riding position, cleat pedals, shape and size of the saddle etc. all took some serious getting used to. I had also completely underestimated the cost of all the ‘essential’ kit and equipment. However, the QARANC Association made a very generous donation, which certainly wasn’t expected but was MOST definitely very much appreciated – thank you.
We arrived at Edinburgh Castle two days prior to commencing the challenge and filled our time with a combination of carb loading (always a welcome activity), tinkering with our bikes and going out for what I thought was a completely unnecessary leg stretch ride which consisted of 42 miles. The night before the off we were invited to The Palace of Holyrood House for supper with The Duke of Edinburgh and Earl and Countess of Wessex. I had the privilege of sitting next to the Duke of Edinburgh who was delightful company, incredibly witty and had us all in fits of laughter throughout. The food was amazing, as was the wine; however, for those of you that know me you’ll be relieved to hear that I restricted myself to only one glass!!! A totally fabulous evening, unforgettable company – one that I will never forget.
On day one of the challenge we arrived at the Palace to be greeted by hoards of reporters and photographers and
after a couple of quick interviews and umpteen photographs we headed off. The sun was shining which made the next 78 miles all the more bearable. This set the scene for the rest of the week and apart from one day of horrific head winds and three drops of rain we had the weather on our side throughout. The theme of a mid-morning cake stop started on day one and continued throughout the challenge; lunch was a little more hit and miss and having enjoyed the delights of a very special Holyrood Palace standard “horror bag”, the rest of the week proved a very hard act to follow. The first day consisted of some pretty cheeky climbs; however, the views from the English – Scottish border made it all worthwhile. Again we were greeted with lots of press and photographers, which resulted in me attempting to hide behind my bike (d’Arcy in Lycra just isn’t the best look!!). After a long, very fast and pretty scary descent down the other side we headed up towards Otterburn Camp where we were treated to a fly past by two Tornados, which had been organised by the RAF Wittering representative.
On day two, after a reasonable nights’ sleep and a couple of bowls of porridge, we set off in the general direction towards Catterick. We had been warned several times that this would “probably” be the worst day for hills; however, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and we knew there would be a good cake stop in about 30 miles. As we were leaving Otterburn we stopped to chat to a few members of the press, and some school children and Army Cadets who had gathered in the local church carpark to wave us off. Unfortunately I had my first and thankfully only tumble and ended up sprawled across the pavement in front of them all. A slight technical glitch – stationary bike, clipped in with my left shoe and for no apparent reason I leant over to the left – end result was me in a heap with a grazed knee. GREAT START!!!
The scenery on route was amazing and “almost” took our minds off the endless hills, false peaks, blind summits, crawler lanes etc etc etc until we found a great village with the most amazing cake shop (you see the recurring cake theme)! A hot chocolate and snicker slice later, we set off on the second leg and after several hours of more hills and even more false
THE GAZETTE QARANC 29
EXERCISE DIAMOND CHALLENGE 19–25 September 2016