Day 3: 160km aaaagghh!
South Molton to Bristol, via Taunton, Bridgwater, Weston-super-Mare, Nailsea
The man in the next caravan last night had a pristine, shiny-white 5-yr old Landrover, all tricked out for round-the-world desert driving and whitewater rafting. Which was odd, in deepest, darkest Devon. (South Molton to be precise.) We speculated all evening about the world map on the sidepanels, the widened body, huge jerrycans, roof-level exhaust, winch, canopy, sand channels, and on and on. So useful on Devon's leafy drovers' routes. Even the fords here are gentle trickles that a Ka could safely tackle. And the nearest thing to a desert is the beach carpark at Westward Ho! But sadly the man himself was elusive. Tidied up his map and snuck silently away.
So how come, this morning, once Jony and I had disappeared (at crack of dawn) Mr Elusive became Mr Effusive? Gave Jeremy the full rundown: how he comes from Botswana, has three of these 'Hippos' and has only just finished buying this one and setting it up, ready for a roadtrip down through South America, after he tests it out in Iceland. Phew! Makes our LEJOG adventure seem tame by comparison!
Nevertheless, we had a good day today and knocked off two more counties. We were both pretty tired after yesterday's monster switchback hills and were very relieved that this morning's ride mostly followed the summits of the hills, rather than hacking over each ridge, from valley to valley. We used great B-roads as far as Taunton, then searched for the Taunton-Bridgwater Canal, thinking this might give us some respite, both from huge climbs and from Saturday holiday traffic. No such luck: we kept seeing signposts to 'canalside carparks', but absolutely could not find the canal! Carried on up the A38 as far as Highbridge then thankfully picked up a very pretty cycletrack towards Burnham. After that, we stitched together as many lanes and cycletracks as we could muster. Bumped into a family on the Strawberry Line who were on their way down to LandsEnd (all on folders, including a folding tandem); and met a cyclist on the Festival Way who had led the ride I did to Nantes last September. Such a small world.
By the time we got back to Bristol we were soaked and knackered. Have covered close to 100 miles today - rather more than we planned(!) and missed the Harbourside fireworks tonight because it is still bucketing down.
Jony's day 3
I don't remember the last time that I cycled 100 miles in a day. That's because I never have! I prefer to work in metric units and 100km is just fine thanks, sounding so much more impressive than 65 miles. But 160km - that's just silly.
South Molton to Bristol, via Taunton, Bridgwater, Weston-super-Mare, Nailsea
The man in the next caravan last night had a pristine, shiny-white 5-yr old Landrover, all tricked out for round-the-world desert driving and whitewater rafting. Which was odd, in deepest, darkest Devon. (South Molton to be precise.) We speculated all evening about the world map on the sidepanels, the widened body, huge jerrycans, roof-level exhaust, winch, canopy, sand channels, and on and on. So useful on Devon's leafy drovers' routes. Even the fords here are gentle trickles that a Ka could safely tackle. And the nearest thing to a desert is the beach carpark at Westward Ho! But sadly the man himself was elusive. Tidied up his map and snuck silently away.
So how come, this morning, once Jony and I had disappeared (at crack of dawn) Mr Elusive became Mr Effusive? Gave Jeremy the full rundown: how he comes from Botswana, has three of these 'Hippos' and has only just finished buying this one and setting it up, ready for a roadtrip down through South America, after he tests it out in Iceland. Phew! Makes our LEJOG adventure seem tame by comparison!
Nevertheless, we had a good day today and knocked off two more counties. We were both pretty tired after yesterday's monster switchback hills and were very relieved that this morning's ride mostly followed the summits of the hills, rather than hacking over each ridge, from valley to valley. We used great B-roads as far as Taunton, then searched for the Taunton-Bridgwater Canal, thinking this might give us some respite, both from huge climbs and from Saturday holiday traffic. No such luck: we kept seeing signposts to 'canalside carparks', but absolutely could not find the canal! Carried on up the A38 as far as Highbridge then thankfully picked up a very pretty cycletrack towards Burnham. After that, we stitched together as many lanes and cycletracks as we could muster. Bumped into a family on the Strawberry Line who were on their way down to LandsEnd (all on folders, including a folding tandem); and met a cyclist on the Festival Way who had led the ride I did to Nantes last September. Such a small world.
By the time we got back to Bristol we were soaked and knackered. Have covered close to 100 miles today - rather more than we planned(!) and missed the Harbourside fireworks tonight because it is still bucketing down.
Jony's day 3
I don't remember the last time that I cycled 100 miles in a day. That's because I never have! I prefer to work in metric units and 100km is just fine thanks, sounding so much more impressive than 65 miles. But 160km - that's just silly.
We were helped by the fact that the first part of the day's ride was along what turned out to be an old drover's road that ran, as best it could, along the top of a ridge of hills, before dropping down towards Taunton and the Somerset levels. So our path towards Bridgewater, Berrow and Weston was either flat or downhill in the main. But even so: 160km!
We were also helped by the weather, which was not too hot. Indeed, as we reached Nailsea, it began to rain steadily and thereafter only increased as we took a series of devious and clever back roads into Bristol, where we arrived far too soaked and exhausted to take part in any of the Harbourside festival (which had, in truth, been washed out). So we had some chicken and fell into bed.
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