Wednesday 24 September 2014 05:45, UK
Today has been a great day for cycling, thanks largely to the stunning scenery of Northumberland and the Borders, coupled with sustained periods of glorious sunshine.
Sunday night’s pit stop at Durham’s finest budget hotel (the one Lenny Henry rants about) hadn’t quite lived up to its promise of a guaranteed good night’s sleep. However, it must be acknowledged that this was probably due to a deafening duet of snoring courtesy of Messrs Heptonstall and Walker, rather than any failing on the part of the establishment. When the decibels reached Big Ben proportions, Andy C took matters into his own hands and moved to the comfort of the bathroom floor, where he spent the rest of the night.
Darren and Rick had opted to sleep in the motorhome but didn’t fare much better, and so it was with weary faces and achy bones that we mounted the bikes at 0815 and headed north towards Newcastle.
After stopping briefly to mark our arrival at the Angel of the North, we made good progress through Newcastle, plotting a course past Morpeth and along the A697 through Longframlington, Powburn, Milfield and Coldstream where we left England for the final time on the Tour.
Lunch was served on the Scottish border. On today’s menu: Brazilian Beef Steak BBQ Pot Noodle (medium rare) followed by flapjack and jelly babies. We know how to live.
From there our route was punctuated by charming Borders villages until, shortly after 5pm, we reached our end destination of Muirfield Golf Club. After posing for the usual pics, club secretary Stuart McEwen gave us an unexpected and rare guided tour of one of the most iconic venues in world championship golf – the Muirfield clubhouse.
Finally, with pin flags in hand, we bade farewell to Muirfield and headed for the North Berwick campsite which would be our home until daylight.
It’s fair to say that the two Andys drew the short straw today, riding a never-ending succession of undulations (it was on one of the downhill stretches that Andy C suffered a 33 mph bee sting) while Rick and Darren made spectacular progress on the long flat sections. At one point they notched up an impressive 27 miles in less than 90 minutes.
In total we covered 135 miles today and have now collected the last of our hoard of Ryder Cup venue pin flags (including those of Valderrama which we’d received prior to setting off). A slight mishap on Saturday evening had resulted in the two Moortown flags being left in a car boot back in West Yorkshire. Today’s swift phone call to a courier should see the flags delivered to our campsite by 9am tomorrow.
Whether we’re able to present this unique collection of Ryder Cup memorabilia to the teams when we reach Gleneagles tomorrow remains to be seen. Intense Ryder Cup security is chief among several obstacles standing between our collection of flags and their intended recipients.
We dearly hope we’ll find a way to hand over the flags, along with the good wishes of their former owners - the UK and Ireland’s former Ryder Cup venues, whose staff have supported us so magnificently on our 1150 mile voyage to Gleneagles.
Either way, tomorrow’s arrival at Gleneagles will be a momentous occasion for four sore-bottomed golfers from Yorkshire.
Highlights: sunshine, scenery and a tour of Muirfield’s iconic clubhouse
Lowlights: Discovering we’d left the Moortown flags in the back of our Tour Manager’s car in Leeds (thanks to Louise, his better half, for sorting the courier)
Check our Sky Sports blog again tomorrow as we take on the final stage of the Tour de Ryder Cup, or catch up with us en-route at https://twitter.com/TourDeRyderCup or https://www.facebook.com/tourderydercup.
Donations in support of our efforts can be made at www.justgiving.com/teams/TDRC.
Andy Crowther, Darren Tordoff, Andrew Walker and Rick Gillgrass
Tomorrow: The Final Stage – Muirfield – Gleneagles
