Wednesday 1st August 2007. Leg 4: Winscombe to West Nowheresville (Map Ref 497224).
Can’t seem to think of anything funny after yesterday. These last three legs have been hard, hot, long days, with a bit of northerly to contend with. Hoping for easier terrain today.
Campsite a bit of a ‘hippyville’ (fairly near Glastonbury). Left at 10:00 and headed for A370 over some nasty lumpy bits. Jonathan popping up from time to time and asking Georgina how she’s feeling. Getting curt monosyllabic replies from Georgina, who is not a happy bunny.
Meet the support team at Gordano services (that roundabout is a nightmare for cyclists). Coffee there, 20 miles done and it’s 13:40 already and baking hot.
Then we let Garmin do some on-road navigation for us (I’ve somehow truncated the route, so the first part is lost), His suggestion of cycling up the M5 is not taken up. We press on to find the Avon cycleway which will take us across the Avon alongside the M5. Garmin keeps asking us to take ‘U’ turns etc, which we continue to ignore, preferring to follow various sign-posts. These take us all round the houses and must have added a couple of miles to the route.
Eventually we’re across the Avon, and heading down towards “Severn Beach”
Seems to take a hell of a long time to get to the Severn Bridge. The terrain is reasonable, but the traffic is busy. Every other car seems to be a police car. Crossing the Severn is the nearest thing to flying on a bike. Garmin display has this little arrow heading north-west across an ocean of blue.
We’re still a long long way from our destination, and Georgina is in low spirits (again). Give Chepstow a miss as this would add another couple of needless miles to the journey, and continue towards Monmouth. Sit at the Victorian fountain at St. Arvans looking at the next hill and feeling (literally and metaphorically) low. Georgina digs deep, and we set off again, via the road past Tintern Abbey. A nice uppy-downy sort of a road.
Did a bit of owl-startling at 7 o’clock. This simple rural sport consists of cycling past a tree which contains an owl, and observing the reaction of the owl. One point is scored for every owl startled from its perch. There are moves afoot to make this sort of thing illegal.
We made it to Monmouth just in time for a toilet stop at Waitrose before closing time (8 p.m.). The whole support team are in the car park waiting. They advise us to take a more Easterly route up the A466. This we do, but it’s still the wrong kind of hills, and we finally give up at 9:45 p.m. Jacky and the lads coming out to pick us up and drive us to Peterchurch in the beautiful Golden Valley.
Distance covered: 62.5 miles
Moving time: 07:50
Average speed: 8.0 mph
Maximum speed: 25.1 mph.
Can’t seem to think of anything funny after yesterday. These last three legs have been hard, hot, long days, with a bit of northerly to contend with. Hoping for easier terrain today.
Campsite a bit of a ‘hippyville’ (fairly near Glastonbury). Left at 10:00 and headed for A370 over some nasty lumpy bits. Jonathan popping up from time to time and asking Georgina how she’s feeling. Getting curt monosyllabic replies from Georgina, who is not a happy bunny.
Meet the support team at Gordano services (that roundabout is a nightmare for cyclists). Coffee there, 20 miles done and it’s 13:40 already and baking hot.
Then we let Garmin do some on-road navigation for us (I’ve somehow truncated the route, so the first part is lost), His suggestion of cycling up the M5 is not taken up. We press on to find the Avon cycleway which will take us across the Avon alongside the M5. Garmin keeps asking us to take ‘U’ turns etc, which we continue to ignore, preferring to follow various sign-posts. These take us all round the houses and must have added a couple of miles to the route.
Eventually we’re across the Avon, and heading down towards “Severn Beach”
Seems to take a hell of a long time to get to the Severn Bridge. The terrain is reasonable, but the traffic is busy. Every other car seems to be a police car. Crossing the Severn is the nearest thing to flying on a bike. Garmin display has this little arrow heading north-west across an ocean of blue.
We’re still a long long way from our destination, and Georgina is in low spirits (again). Give Chepstow a miss as this would add another couple of needless miles to the journey, and continue towards Monmouth. Sit at the Victorian fountain at St. Arvans looking at the next hill and feeling (literally and metaphorically) low. Georgina digs deep, and we set off again, via the road past Tintern Abbey. A nice uppy-downy sort of a road.
Did a bit of owl-startling at 7 o’clock. This simple rural sport consists of cycling past a tree which contains an owl, and observing the reaction of the owl. One point is scored for every owl startled from its perch. There are moves afoot to make this sort of thing illegal.
We made it to Monmouth just in time for a toilet stop at Waitrose before closing time (8 p.m.). The whole support team are in the car park waiting. They advise us to take a more Easterly route up the A466. This we do, but it’s still the wrong kind of hills, and we finally give up at 9:45 p.m. Jacky and the lads coming out to pick us up and drive us to Peterchurch in the beautiful Golden Valley.
Distance covered: 62.5 miles
Moving time: 07:50
Average speed: 8.0 mph
Maximum speed: 25.1 mph.
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