Today I managed to reach St David’s! No big thing – it was only about 4 miles down the road. Or perhaps up the road. From the door it was immediately up a 10% climb. In fact 100 metres of climbing in the first mile. Not the best wake up for tired legs.
With a strong headwind from the turn onward I was anticipating slow progress and I was right. 110 miles took 12.5 hours, about 9 mph. I set off at 6:30 so still got in early evening, hence time to type this after washing kit, eating etc.
The 75 miles from St David’s are by far the hilliest on the whole route. In fact, other than a the odd hill and a cluster of hills around Bristol and Chepstow, it contains all the hills. So cycling it both ways in two days has been pretty rough. Not so much the total Climb but the steep gradients, most touching over 10%, many over 15%.
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| Bloody Right – ARAF |
In contrast, once you drop out of the hills it is virtually pan flat for miles, all along the sea front on wide cycle paths. Yesterday easy riding bring up my average speed with very little effort, thanks to a strong tail wind. Today, with the wind still in the same direction my speed was quite a bit less for more effort.
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| Hobbit Home with Magnificent Sea Views |
I routed one way using Sustrans route 4 and the other using Google. Some of it was the same but where there were differences I have to say Sustrans won. Google was more direct involving a shorter distance but the route was not so cycle friendly. Sustrans is virtually traffic free.
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| Bizarre Sign: Presumably Firearms are Fine Up to this Point |
Sadly a family crisis means I have to stop the journey early and have to head home on the train tomorrow. Fortunately I did complete the main mission of cycling from Lowestoft to St David’s.
