Tasty Cheddar Gorge

This week Evans Cycles have kindly offered us 10% off all cycling components and accessories from their stores.

Today I adapted the “Tasty Cheddar” 101km Audax, that starts near my house, to make it a little tougher. This is a fairly undulating route anyway but I thought I would stick a long, hard climb in right at the end to really hurt the old legs.

A very scenic route (scenic = hilly!) starting at my house, crossing the Clifton suspension bridge and cycling through the lanes to Clevedon and past the sea front. From Clevedon you get a fairly flat secton across the Somerset levels towards Weston- super-Mare, turning off to Winscombe. Powering along the lanes into a headwind, a very kind muck spreader driver decided to pull out in front of me, and being as wide as the lane I was stuck behind him enjoying the lovely aroma that was passing into my nostrils with every breath. Turning onto a wider road, and him travelling at around 15-20 mph, I decided I’d had enough of this and promptly shoved my bike into a big gear and powered past him, leaving him to drip “muck” all over the Somerset lanes.

On to Cheddar via the lovely little town of Axbridge. On joining the main road up Cheddar gorge, this time an open-top tour bus pulled out in front of me. He could have let me past but no, he had to go first and stop every time he came to a car coming the other way. Luckily he buggered off as the road started to climb and I could get into a comfortable rhythm without having to suck in lungfuls of diesel fumes. I climbed Cheddar gorge without any problems, feeling strong all the way up. At the top of Cheddar gorge, you fork left and then the fun starts, with some real short, sharp ups and downs before reaching Dundry and a very long climb up to the top. From here you can see the Clifton suspension bridge and both Severn bridges. Today I wasn’t interested in the views and continued back to Long Ashton and the long climb up to the top. At the bottom I passed some mountain bikers walking up and decided to go for it and ground my way up it. A fairly flat run in back to Clifton finished off a decent ride. 65 miles. A good warm up for some serious events at the weekend.