Grapevine: Q & A with Matt Wilson

Q. Three days in, how are you feeling?

Matt Wilson: "Not too bad at all. Today's been a hard day, we left Bristol this morning and it's taken us six hours to get through about 96 miles to just outside Shrewsbury, it's been hard work."

Q. Why has it been harder today?

MW: "I'm not sure, really. A lot of people said the third day is a toughie. For the first two days, you've got the buzz and the excitement of what you're doing, but then on the third day it hits you how far you've got to go. It's a bit like that. And we've probably done our biggest climb today, just north of Ludlow, that was quite tough."

Q. How did you feel leaving Land's End?

MW: "Good. It was a pretty miserable day down there, though. There was a lot of rain and mist around - I'm not sure it was clear enough to even get a picture. The cooler conditions were quite nice, not the rain though. The riding itself wasn't too bad, except there were a lot of really long, slow climbs along the A30. You kept looking up and as far as you could see, the road just kept climbing."

Q. Were you nervous?

MW: "I was, actually. When we were driving down to the start point with the bikes, I thought: 'I'm not normally this nervous about starting a rally!' Once we got going, it was good, though."

Q. And how are the legs?

MW: "They're not bad. A bit sore after today, and the old derriere's a bit..."

Q. How are you breaking the riding up?

MW: "We're trying to do 25 miles in the morning, then stop for a cup of tea. Then we're on for another 25 miles before a stop for lunch. It's basically every 25 miles we're stopping. We're obviously doing our navigating as well, which means we're breaking the route down into those segments and getting those downloaded into the Garmin GPS system on the bikes."

Q. Have you had much support on the road?

MW: "Yeah, we've had quite a lot. A few of the boys from M-Sport live around Hereford so they were out, and then Scott's family are from Taunton so we had good support there. As well as that, there's been a few people blowing there horns as they drive past - and a few, er, hand gestures at the same time!"

Q. Where are you going today?

MW: "We leave Shrewsbury and we'll end up in Carnforth tonight. That's going to be good. It's a good incentive, there's lots planned in Cumbria, lots of support up there. The only downside is going over Shap Fell, which is one of the biggest climbs on the route."