It was in the middle of the summer heatwave. But we decided to ride from Exeter train station to the weekend’s venue, nonchalantly expecting that we’d be there in plenty of time for dinner. ‘It’s only 19 miles!’ I kept saying. ‘We were doing 90 a day in Germany!’ It turns out that cycling up and down the hills of Dartmoor is somewhat different to cycling across the flat cornfields of Germany. The afternoon sun gave us some beautiful views across the Devon countryside, but the heat, and the 1,289 feet climb, meant that our ride took us quite a bit longer than anticipated. When we arrived, sweaty and knackered, we were greeted by a table full of friendly faces munching the remains of their dinner. Our food was waiting for us and we were given a glass of wine. Everyone told us they were impressed that we’d cycled up. We felt better. After some more wine, cake, and getting to know our new cycling buddies, we went to bed.

On Sunday, we started the day with a wonderful yoga session which helped to stretch out our achy arms and legs. The weather took a turn for the worse, but this didn’t keep us from our last outdoor adventures. Half of the group went wild swimming, and the other half walked up onto the moor to see some prehistoric ruins. Coming back, cups of tea warmed us up after our wet and windy excursions, and we said our goodbyes before we went our separate ways. The weekend went past really fast, but Brake the Cycle attracts such brilliant people that it felt like we’d known each other much longer, and had fitted loads into a short weekend. Anna’s definitely a convert to the Brake the Cycle way of cycling. Later that summer, we cycled the Lon Las Cymru South, making sure we balanced covering the miles with swimming, cake and wine!