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| We started way, way down there! |
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| Made it to the top of another hill! |
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| One of many water stops today! |
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| Nice view while eating! |
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| Picnic spot by the river, 2nd breakfast |
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| That’s a steep little sucker! |
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| The views do help with the climbing! |
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| When the road disappears, it’s steep! |
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| The view from the top! |
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| At the top! |
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| Our picnic spot at the top |
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| We made it to the top of Exmoor! |
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| And another sneaky up! |
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| The restorative! |
Section 1 is complete. Section 2 begins today. We’re heading across Devon and then into Somerset. Today we go over Exmoor.
The day off after four days was the right idea. We had done 5 consecutive hard (for us) days for the Shakedown Pedal and then a rest day. That took me a couple days to recover from - not shattered, just slow and draggy. Yesterday, after four pretty warm, hard days we were tired, but the walk and lunch out / gentle evening helped. So, feeling less depleted than after the Shakedown.
Speaking of which, really glad we did a hard Shakedown Pedal. Steve tried to replicate the hard days on the LEJOG route for that and it was spot on - it prepped our expectations for what a hard day would be like and I think having the right psychological expectations are as important as doing the physical prep. If you expect something to be hard and it is, that’s fine. If you’re thinking something will be easy and it’s not, that is really difficult to push through. An example of that was we’d aced Bodmin Moor and only had a couple of small hills to go, they were much sharper and steeper than expected - very tough to push through. The last is when you think it’s going to be really, really hard and it’s not - that is wonderful! We had that on the last hill on Day 4 on the Tarka Trail which we’d been steeling ourselves for. It looked painfully steep and turned out to be a very gentle ascent!
Our expectations are set for today, this is probably the highest climb of the tour followed by one of the longest days tomorrow. And, it’s going to be warm, very warm.
We left the hotel and headed down the hill, stopping at Tesco to pick up our picnic for the day. The book said not to be caught up on Exmoor without food and water as there is nothing up there but moor and ponies. Took the cycle path out of town. The cycle paths are often slower, but you don’t have cars tailing you trying to get by.
It wasn’t long before we began to climb. There were two main climbs today and periodic sneaky climbs. You’ll see it from the map, but all in all 33.8 miles, 1600 feet at the top and 2900 feet of climbing for the day. As usual, we had to get off and push on the steepest bits. There seems to be an optimum climbing point where we could pedal all day, but if it gets too much steeper than that we’re off and pushing.
We did make it to the top! And it felt like we were on top of the world as we could see for miles all around. It’s so quiet up there and we saw no one except one or two passing cars. We had our picnic at the very top. Sunny, warm, a slight breeze, a very remote place. Can imagine that it’s desolate in the winter, but today - perfection!
Nice undulating ride into Dulverton (with a last uphill push for good measure) to the Lion Hotel. I had realised it was Saturday and emailed to get a table tonight, they responded that their chef wasn’t feeling well and they weren’t doing food. Hmm, that’s a bit of an issue, considering we’d pedalled all day to get there and even though ‘there’s a lovely pub just a couple miles down the road’, at this point in the day we do not want to pedal another foot never mind two miles out and two miles back (with hills and in the dark on a tandem!). Tried all the restaurants in town and managed to get a table at a Thai. The fallback position was also a good one, there’s a Co-op next door and we could have gotten a charcuterie and a bottle of wine so things were not desperate!
The new shorts made a difference, as did the new chamois cream. The foot pain was alleviated (not completely) by the high heeled shoe dancing ball of foot pad - technical term. And the biggest difference and redeeming factor for the no chef hotel - a bathtub, the amazing restorative!
We have now done Devon and are in Somerset - I wonder if we can find some scrumpy!
Steve’s Letters From comes early this week:
Good Day all you LFAs and welcome to this week’s edition. It’s a day early but tomorrow is a long day and I know how you all wait for this on Sunday and if it’s not there then ……. 😳😳
Anyway the cycling gods have been with us this week and here we are, on plan, in Somerset in a little place called Dulverton. If the write ups on LEJOG are to be believed the worst in terms of hills is over, we will see. If you have been reading the blog you will be up to date with the mechanics of the tour, mileages, altitude gains, where we have been what we have eaten etc so I thought I would reflect on what it’s done for my understanding of the bits of the country we have been through and for long distance cycling in general. This week we have not quite finished the South West ( the tour breaks down into UK Regions e.g, South West, West Midlands, North West. South Scotland). Cornwall and Devon and Somerset, too early to comment on Somerset as we have another couple of days of that yet. But Cornwall and to some extent Devon are counties of two halves, there is the bustling and crowded tourist spots (which thankfully the route kept us out of in the main) then there is the vast majority of it by area which is quiet, beautiful countryside, very sparsely populated and I don’t think necessarily that wealthy. Most of the route has been on single track roads (for USA 🇺🇸 readers this means it’s wide enough for one car at once, passing places are needed for cars going in the opposite direction to pass, tandems can squeeze by small cars!!). You can go miles without seeing a car or a shop or a pub or even houses!!
So what’s the conclusion ? Two worlds co-existing side by side, great place for holidaying and I am sure, if you want total peace and quiet far from the madness, a great place to live a simpler life.
As for the life of long distance cyclist again too early to tell, we have done 5 days before, let’s see where we are in another week!! I am sure that at some point my legs and my backside will stop hurting but I don’t think it’s going to be in the next few days !! I sense we are getting stronger and changing shape (don’t know about weight) but there is still some way to go yet.
If you have been reading the blog you will know there has been the odd “engineering intervention” required. Mainly to do with the back disc brake but we seem to have it under control. It’s dry and hot and dusty on the gravel trails which make up a good portion of the route so far so staying on top of the lubricant on the chain is a daily routine to maintain “silent running”.
In conclusion, so far so good, next letters from, cycling gods willing, will come from I think Nantwich which is the stop before Manchester and two stops before Highcroft. Highcroft is pretty much half way.
Have a great week. Steve & Katherine.
