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| Rodrigo, Colin, Stuart, Tim, Rob - all aboard for Exeter |
Surprise! This morning we were joined at Cheddar by Colin's friends Tim, Rob and Rodrigo, who'd decided to ride to Exeter with us. Great! I happily informed everyone that the route wasn't quite 60 miles and was mostly flat. There was an obvious sense of relief (but they should know better by now).
There was the usual sizing up in the first few miles to Wedmore, who's quick and who can climb etc, (Rodrigo clearly winning on both scores) but of course the real point is who can make it all the way to our destination? From Westhay we head towards Othery, which included one of those deceptive climbs that makes you feel your legs aren't working and a technical descent on tarmac singletrack. Now the search for coffee started, and eventually we found a friendly pub serving fantastic bacon sandwiches. Cheers Tim for buying the round :)
Next we dived off the A381 for the approach to Taunton, along the canal towpath, which wasn't completely to the taste of those on road oriented bikes. There was the odd hairy moment nipping under the bridges which never looked to be high enough to clear your head - and this had to be balanced against the increasing headroom over the water... and there's no curb... slowly does it.
In Taunton we sat outside the pasty shop sympathising with the ice-cream man who didn't look to have sold so much as a cone all day. Well it was cold and raining - this is August after all. The rather unpleasant A38 was our route south; complete with traffic jams, dusty re-surfaced carriageway, headwind and.. hills. We were all grateful to turn on to the B3181 at Cullompton but even that seemed to have been re-surfaced over corrugated iron. But the sun came out, so we were happy.
Finally we turned on to National Cycle Route 3, 7 miles to Exeter and the hilliest section yet. Eventually it was genuinely downhill all the way to St Davids station where we bid the chaps farewell, all in good spirits. And then returned uphill to our B&B.
Today: 65.4 miles, cumulative 780.5 miles. Today's max speed 35.7 mph.
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