Sometimes it all goes pear shaped. Take today for example. Daily chores after a ride are to wash out cycling kit, have a shower, eat tea, find accommodation for the next day, tidy the panniers, buy food for the next ride, label the photos, write up the log and post it and check emails if there is an internet connection. If you finish cycling late or have a very chatty B&B host, time is very tight in the evenings and I haven’t made it into bed before 11.30pm one single time. I have been getting progressively more disorganised for the last couple of days and this morning I didn’t get out of Bridgwater until 10.20am. I usually start at 9am but 8.30am would be preferable.
The first 20 miles passed flatly at a good speed and before I knew it I was at the bottom of Cheddar Gorge with all the other grockels. I cycled slowly through the busy retail village where tickets to the caves could be bought and started to climb up through it. I could hear ghostly echoes of rock climbers encouraging each other up the walls of the gorge. At Compton Martin I failed to get to the pub in time for lunch and instead, picnicked by the village pond, sharing my cheese roll with a duck the size of a Fiat 500.
It was nice to see water again at Chew Lake and I had the road to myself until I got to the “Chews“, Chew Stoke and Chew Magna, where the school traffic choked up all the streets at 4pm. I headed back into the lanes after this. These are good because there is very little traffic and they undulate so the riding is more interesting, even if you have to push a bit. I emerged from the maze of lanes at Saltford where I joined the cycle path between Bristol and Bath. I got lost getting off the cycle path (I know!)
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| Cheesy Cheddar |
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| the gorge |
It was getting late now though. The route I am following is a Cyclists Touring Club one which requires micro-navigation on a map which is almost too small-scale to do this. I have to stop at every junction to double check the route as back-tracking is soul destroying. So it was 7pm when I went in to a pub for tea and I still had 20 miles to go, all on lanes. There was quite a bit of pushing in these lanes and it was getting dark by the time I got seriously lost in tiny Nibley. I had been phoning the B&B lady to keep her in the loop and it was with great relief that her torch and mine finally locked beams at 9.30pm.
Rest day tomorrow….
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