Distance - 50km (estimated), 62km (actual)
Total ascent - 960m
Altitude at start - 0m (sea level)
Altitude at finish - 335m
Estimated total riding time - 5:45
The trip started not quite to plan. After a sleepless night at the anticipation of the upcoming ride I hauled myself and gear down to catch the 6:22am train.
My first meeting was with a Maori fellow from Wellington who had decided to cycle the Taka trail three days ago but had not booked any accommodation. Good luck I said, it’s a long weekend and everywhere will be full. Kiwi ingenuity and a nice smile works he said. I had spent the last month planning my trip so I didn't envy him trying to find a place to stay when tired and hungry.
Four and a half hours later I stepped out of the Plymouth main line rail station into a warm sunny summer’s day, but immediately there was a problem.
I had been diligent in replacing everything worn including my chain to reduce the chance of gear failure, but had failed to spot that the rear cassette was also badly worn. This meant that the new chain would not slot into the worn cogs so as a result the chain was skipping which meant peddling was impossible.
So I tried to find the bike shop listed in my ride book but it didn't exist anymore. Then it was off to find tourist information that was at the bottom of the hill. They then sent me back up the hill into town again and I finally located very well hidden bike shop and the student mechanic promptly identified the problem and replaced the rear cassette.
So finally I was ready to start. I returned to the information centre again and set off from the starting point which I though was Smeaton’s tower, but it wasn't.
After about half an hour of going round in circles I realised that I was in the wrong location and promptly located Smeaton’s tower (a lighthouse), took a photo and went.
It was now 13:45, about 2.5 hours after I had planned to start and I was quite worried that I would not make it to the hostel before dark as I had about 50km's to cover with quite a lot of up to get there.
So it was pedal to 
the metal. The first part of the ride followed the national cycle route 27 which took me back to my original starting point then followed a costal path around the Plymouth harbour before heading inland.
I promptly got lost trying to decide which maze of routes to follow, but then finally found the start of the west Devon way and pinned back the ears concise that I had lost more valuable time.
The west Devon way followed an old disused train line and it gently climbed to 100m altitude, occasionally busting out of the forest to pass over valleys with rivers and forest below.
With a steep granny cog climb over Clearbrook common I entered Dartmoor national park and promptly missed the critical turn. After about 3k I realised the error when I saw that I was heading back to Plymouth. Oh well I got a great view of my starting point and headed back up the road to take the correct turn.
Dartmoor was phenomenal. After a decent amount of road climbing, finally the proper offroad started as I climbed up a demanding rough bridleway to near Hartor Tor at 440m. On the way I had passed close to the filmset of the new Steven Spielberg movie which I wasn't allowed to know about but was invited to detour to have a look at. Unfortunately time didn't allow for detours so I continued.
The trail eventually flattened out onto beautiful almost silky smooth single track and I raced on stopping only to snap pictures of the marvellous views and Dartmoor ponies.
It was stunningly peaceful and beautiful in the Dartmoor moors. I saw a few people and several locals stopped me for a chat. I guess you don't see someone riding singletrack with a big pack on everyday.
I wisely avoided the "boggy" shortcut option and descended into Princetown in gusto and stopped to recharge energy levels.
The evening was beginning to set in so I hurried on to get stumped at a weird bridleway junction, but found the correct route and headed up for the hills again onto Dartmoor way technical singletrack stuff.
The book mentions you should check the river levels before attempting the preferred Dartmoor stepping stones routes via excellent technical singletrack. River levels looked ok to me despite the deluge of rain the area had had in the last week, so I decided to make an adventure out of the trip and took the preferred option.
Technical singletrack what the heck? What is this guy on who wrote the ride guide? It was about 50% un-ridable at best due to the amount of tree roots but at least the stepping stones were absolutely fine. I got lost again high on a field full of gorse, and began to panic that I wouldn't get a bed or meal at the hostel and called them to say I was an hour away and pre order dinner.
I quick found where I needed to go and bushwacked through the gorse back to the correct bridleway, crossed the river via more stepping stones, pushed my bike up another un-ridable track and to my relief found the fire road road which got me to the hostel in 5 minutes! I was closer than anticipated and ended up arriving at 17:15 just as dusk began to approach from the sky.
Relieved, hungry, tired, sore, I checked in. It had been a gruelling and nervous first day with a number of wrong turns, but I had seen some of the most beautiful countryside in England and was away from the bustle of London. A very action packed first day.
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