Last week I took part in a Sport Relief bloggers event that has raised a fantastic £26,521 for charity so far. Over one day I carried a baton, which was part of a Team Honk relay from Land’s End to John o’ Groats, from Alnmouth to Edinburgh.

In total the baton, named Mr B, has travelled 3,000 miles and was passed between dozens of bloggers. These bloggers carried the baton while running, cycling, swimming, roller-skating, scooting, pushing buggies and even white water rafting.

My part seems insignificant in this long journey but it was a day of fun, adventure and a little torture. (I love days of fun and adventure!).

The Sport Relief day began at 6am when I met my cycling adventure pal Super Mechanic Nick. SMN had accompanied me on a previous Olympics baton relay and, bizarrely, was up for another baton relay (“Only,” he sad, “if the baton this time is less than three feet long!”). The baton turned out to be smaller but a great deal “fatter” thanks to all the ribbon attached to it.

Our journey began with a six-mile cycle to Glasgow to catch a train to Alnmouth. The train arrived in Alnmouth on Northumberland’s coast at 9am where we waited for another blogger, Hannah Parker to arrive on her bike from Newcastle. Hannah had bravely volunteered to cycle 30 miles. She was accompanied by a cycling chum Mike.

The handover felt a little odd. Hannah and I had never met before yet we knew each other through Facebook. And while I would have loved to stop for a long chat, we only had time for a quick photo  of the baton handover and a brief conversation.

SMN and I had a long way to cycle and it was already 10.30am. The aim was 85 miles by bike to Dunbar, then the train to Edinburgh to hand over the baton to more bloggers.

The weather and cycling the Team Honk relay

For the week before this event I had been studying the weather. I dared to hope for a tail wind and mild March temperatures. And amazingly, on the day, we did enjoy fairly mild conditions, a welcome sun and a sort-of tailwind. It was “sort of” because for the first hour or so after leaving Alnmouth we whizzed along with a south-westerly at our backs.

I even started to imagine that the ride along the NCN Route 7 – also called the Sustrans Coast and Castles trail – would be fairly easy. Thankfully I didn’t fully commit to this idea because at Boulmer and then again at Howick the route headed westerly and into the wind.

I knew then that the Team Honk cycle would not be a doddle.

The Coast and Castles route is the preferred east coast cycle route. The alternative road on the east coast of country is the A1. The A1 is not a road for pedal cyclists. But because the route is meant to be as quiet and traffic free as possible it winds backwards and forwards on country roads and between country villages.

No sooner were we enjoying an easy pedal with a tailwind when we would turn west to be faced with the full force of a 30mph headwind. Even when cycling a side wind, the going was tough because it is difficult to stay upright and pedal with a strong wind blasting you from the side.

For much of the route we quietly prayed for there to be a right hand bend around the next corner so we could enjoy a bit of tailwind.

Our recorded cycling pace on my lovely Garmin Edge 810 reveals how slow we were going. Our average moving speed was just 13.1mph. SMN and I are fairly good cyclists and would expect to average about 18mph. Our slowest speed was far less than this.

The coastal route seemed to be fairly flat but when you look at the statistics afterwards we cycled over a lot of mini hills. The elevation gain was 2,839ft while the elevation loss was just 2,679ft. So we cycled up more than we cycled down.

Some highs on the Team Honk relay cycle

Despite the difficult cycling conditions the Team Honk relay adventure was great fun. I love heading off for a day with just public transport and a bike to rely on and no concrete plan of what will happen in the meantime!

We had decided to follow the Coast and Castle route but we didn’t know the route in detail and we were not sure how far we would get. The Route 7 signposts turned out to be excellent but the route was far more “round the houses” than we had thought.

I have not spent a great deal of time on the east coast in the last decade (we tend to head north and west) so it was wonderful to take in the beautiful scenery. The east coast boasts so many fabulous beaches and Route 7 offers superb vistas.

Route 7 also passes by stunning Bamburgh Castle and close to the Holy Isle. If you ever fancy cycle route with lots of attractions en route I’d recommend the Coast and Castles trail.

Lunch and the rest of the day

Having zoomed through the first part of the ride and then slowed significantly we found ourselves well short of our planned lunch stop at Berwick upon Tweed. Cycling takes a lot of energy (the calorie count for the east coast ride alone was more than 2,500) and we were in need of a something more than energy gels and cereal bars to consume.

We spotted a restaurant close to the Holy Isle and took a much-needed refreshment stop.

With renewed energy we set off again, only to find we had missed a turning on Route 7. On the unnecessary detour of a mile or so, SMN was halted by a puncture. The wind had picked up and the sun had disappeared.

We remained upbeat because if you’ve cycled as much as we have you know that there are always low points in a bike ride. But then, when we relocated Route 7, we discovered that this section was going to be off-road.

Well, to be honest, we hoped that this section of off-road would be short. But it was not. In fact, we never relocated good quality tarmac again and spent many torturous miles cycling on rough trails, along sand dunes and finally along the grassy headlands of a beach.

The final stretch to Berwick is up-close-to-the-coast beautiful but it zapped time and energy and left us with little choice but to catch a train home and via the planned handover in Edinburgh.

We had spent most of the day hoping we would be able to make the last 30 miles on a bike to Dunbar but there really wasn’t time.

A quick baton handover rethink

The train ride from Berwick headed through Edinburgh and on to Glasgow. I calculated that if we did a handover in Edinburgh we might not make it home before midnight. So I thought up Plan B (or was it Plan C?).

It took a few phone calls but finally I arranged to hand the baton to the husband of blogger Ellen. Her husband works at The Sun in Glasgow and he took the baton home to Ellen so that she could then take it with her for the next part of the relay on the Forth Road Bridge. (Are you keeping up?)

As it turned out I did not get home until almost 8pm. I’d spent 14 hours taking part in the Team Honk relay but it was all for charidee – and it was a fun day out on my bike.

Thanks everyone for inviting me to take part. You can still donate money to the Team Honk Sport Relief cause via Just Giving.

* Next up on my relay front is a section or two of the GB Relay – the “People’s Relay” – in June.