Re:
It was supposed to be cloudy. warm and dry here today, so I had planned a 50 mile leg stretch this afternoon.
In actuality it was cold and damp with an almost constant drizzle, but it was warm enough, so a change of bike from steel pristine Lloyd to carbon workhorse KTM was decided.
By the time I got out the temperature had dropped but the misty rain had stopped. :mrgreen: That was until I got 10 miles in and close to the coast at Clevedon, by which time is was seriously damp. :facepalm:
From Clevedon I headed up the coast road to Portishead, yes the one that the band took its name from. I was going to get a few photos of the bike with the Bristol Channel behind, but it was a misty, gloomy white out, so I just kept peddling. Through the town and out the other side and onto the excellent shared pathway out towards the motorway, over the cycle / foot bridge and onto the bottom of Two Mile Hill... nuff sed. Except I didn't take the hill instead I went up Failand Lane which has a series of sharp climbs and shallow flats, very warming on a chilly day.
Part way up.
From there it is into Race Horse Lane (where Eddy Large is said to live.. or have lived), and thence to the A something or another towards Nailsea and eventually Clevedon. This has a bit of a long climb, and slight flat for about a mile, then a fantastic three mile descent where you run out of gears and where cars just cannot pass.... or in my case, cannot catch me up without really flooring it.
At the bottom of the hill I jinked left onto a very old drovers road and stopped for a breather by the Monkey Bridge... until today I never knew where that name came from.
Over the bridge and back towards Nailsea.
Where the bridge got its name.
About half way along the causeway a swan flew right over the top of my head, no more than two or three feet above me as it was on final approach to a rhyne, amazing.
From Nailsea I worked through the lanes the 15 miles home, still damp, still cold and by now pretty tired.