By Clarky and Chris
Late rise today, shorter distance (60miles!) coupled with a late night in Dusseldorf… finishing at 1:30am for some !! (Names not to be revealed !!).
Given it was a city centre hotel the Van boys did an excellent parking job literally parking the van right outside the hotel !!
Although brilliant this did lead to our post ride preparations being totally viewable for the outside world !! A professional cycling outfit we are not …..
After daily stretch routine and Clarky’s puncture repair ( again !! 😂) we were off .. forecast was colder and it was !! Breezy too and as we headed north out of the city the wind was even more pronounced.. including rain which lead us to shelter for 15mins under a few trees .. well worth it too !!!
We continued across rally quite industrial terrain eventually leaving the Rhine and headed north west towards the Dutch boarder..
After 30 miles the van boys came up trumps again … booking into a typical Germanic local restaurant.. near a small village called Lintfort .. a superb light lunch healthily too … soup and omelette happily consumed before we headed into the wind again !!
The afternoon session although short was pretty tough cold and windy throughout and the countryside plains added to the exposure and difficulty in ploughing along ..
We split into two groups and kept it going until 10 miles from our re target destination Kleve we stopped for a quick coffee and cake ..
A tough say but thankfully we had some time to relax 4:30 – 6:00 before heading into Kleve and our evening restaurant .. Zur Post .. which was absolutely superb .. we had steaks and stroganoff in the main and all thoroughly enjoyed the meal …
Rider of the day was well received too Rob won the accolades this time for sacrificing himself to shield the rest of us from the unrelenting wind for most of the day !!
Forecast for tomorrow looks pretty poor !!! Wind and rain for large parts of the day …
Day-8-3
