I don’t know what possesses me sometimes. I get an idea into my head and then I have to do it because otherwise I’ll be wimping out. Today, with the sun shining and, allegedly, not a lot of wind, I decided I fancied seeing what Spring looks like from the top of the Mendips for a change. I wanted views, and space, and a degree of novelty. Now in order to do this, options are limited, and all of them go up. However we’ve already established that, left to my own devices, up is not out of the question.
So, which way up? The Gorge of course! Which actually proved to be marginally less challenging than some times. After the worst bit at the bottom, it’s was just me, pootling along in the sunshine, chatting to the goats blocking the road, and admiring the Gorge. Not horrible by any means. It took me a smidge under 30 minutes to get from my house to the fork in the road at the top, which I felt was fairly respectable even if it wouldn’t win me any Queen of the Mountain competitions *grin*.
I forked off left and had the roads to myself all over the top of the Mendips. Not a soul. Not even another cyclist. Just me, the newly resurfaced road, and a burgeoning sun tan. I came down gingerly down via Harptree Hill, not least because there was another white van behind me. I’m starting to think I’m haunted. Can you have a bête blanche?…
Over the main road to positively zoom past Chew Valley Lake. There was a rabbit in front of me that I tried to chase down, and had nearly made it but I had to turn left up Pagans Hill. Which is a great name for a hill, and makes you wonder what the Pagans did on it. I spent a while musing on what the definition of Pagan is and whether or not it applies to me as I made my way via Winford and Felton to Lulsgate Bottom, when I decided to wonder where Lulsgate Top was…
As I turned into Brockley Coombe, with some silver Merc attempting to come past me, a fair sized male deer came hurtling out of the undergrowth on the right hand side, careered across the road all of two bike lengths in front of me and the Merc, jumped over the fence, went down along the inside of it right next to me and then crashed off into the undergrowth. Which was all quite eventful and more than a little bit exciting 🙂
I headed down the Coombe for a bit before taking the left turn to go ’round the airport. I love it up there because the views are stunning, there are plenty of over-compensating anoraks to inwardly laugh at, and I even got to watch a couple of planes take off right next to me, which even my inner geek thinks is kinda cool. Watching something that size, shape, and weight, lumber along and suddenly become airborne – well, it’s clearly not possible so it must be magic. Like how TV works. (Don’t ask, it’s a running joke). Having said that it’s magical as long as you’re not photographing it or taking down its number. That’s just weird 😉
Down from the heady heights and down what may become my favourite downhill – the Long Lane to Wrington. Even the car behind me got bored of trying to overtake and just let me get on with enjoying it, whilst he dealt with the stream of traffic coming up the hill. And I did enjoy it. It would have been rude for his sacrifice to have been in vain 😉
From there it was easy. Langford, Churchill, Sandford, Winscombe and home. Much head down, on the drops, yummy goodness. Not that this recovered my average speed much – that was totalled by all the hills – but I surely did enjoy it. Especially the bypass. That’s always lovely 🙂
Cycling time: 2:14:00
Distance: 32.56 miles
Avs: 14.5 mph
ODO: 4283 miles
I think I may have used the word enjoyed too much and am tempted to go back and have an adjective replacement session, but then maybe you wouldn’t understand how much I enjoyed my ride *grin*.