LEJOG Day 13 - Bridgnorth to Nantwich

Today’s route - 3 climbs

Outside the Parlor Hotel, Bridgnorth, Low Town

Morning pedal through the misty forest 

Pub in the banks of the River Severn

Wrought iron bridge 

Patiently waiting while I take pictures!

Some fancy field grooming going on here

Newport, but not as I know it

Looks like really tall weeds, but there’s miles of the stuff!

Cows

More cows (and a farm on every corner)

Neat route info from Komoot, the roads and the surfaces 

Breakfast room

Long awaited coffee

What a place to read your paper!

We’ve given up on cafes and gone straight to pubs

Our room for the night

We’re over the garage

Tudor buildings everywhere

Ebenezer’s craft beers, something for next time

Had a very nice dinner at The Crown

Enjoying his Shropshire beer

Very cozy spot, with soft seats!

Nantwich

So many oldy worldy buildings

Another cow

Moving from the West Midlands to Cheshire today, 52 miles with ‘some’ hills.  Wondered yesterday if we’re getting stronger and the answer is yes, there is a noticeable improvement - not massive, but there is a difference.  Yesterday’s pushing was mainly due to obstacles, impossible turns for tandems or a hilltop turn.  We do have a new hill phrase, ‘It looks steep, but I think we can manage it’.  Progress indeed, but legs are still sore.

Going back to the discussion regarding the journey or the destination.  A couple of times I (the navigator) have thought, ‘If we just go that way, we’ll take off X miles.’  But on this trip, what are you going to do if you get there early?  We got to Gloucester at 2:00 and found out.  Get into the room, have showers, have a wander about to check out the town, see the cathedral, fall into a pub for a ‘scoop’ as Steve says and then realise you’re STARVING and it’s an hour or more before any of the restaurants you want to go to are open for dinner!  Another reason to not rush the journey.

Today’s route took us through the Bridgnorth Low Town, along the river and then followed a bike path for 5 miles.  It was a gravely, muddy bike path, but it was better than some.  It did feel a bit like 4 wheeling on 2 wheels though!  Lovely misty morning as we pedalled along the last parts of the River Severn (for us), through the forest and then followed the Silkin Way rail trail into Telford.  Telford is a ‘new town’, a purpose built town with things like bike paths running throughout.  We rode all the way into town on a bike path, stopped for the Costa coffee that I’d been wanting for 400 miles, picked up the bike path and left town on a bike path - no fighting traffic!  Loads of roundabouts though…

One of the interesting things about rail trails is they look like there is a really steep hill and instead you pedal up an amazingly gentle incline all the while wondering where that hill is!  That first steep hill in the map, wasn’t - such a treat!

Then we got on the country lanes.  Today there was almost no traffic, some hills, a couple good pubs.  It was 52 miles so it was a long day, but amazing to say this one wasn’t brutal.  

At one point I said to Steve, ‘We must be seeing 10-15 farms a day’.  He said, ‘No, we’re seeing 10-15 farms an hour’.  I started counting and he was right - farm after farm seems like around every corner…

We’re in Nantwich tonight, at an over the garage Air bnb.  Surprisingly the 8/10s walk into town and back wasn’t too bad.  Nantwich was really pretty with loads of Tudor buildings, cobblestone streets and beautiful flowers everywhere.

LEJOG Day 12 - Worcester to Bridgnorth

Severn Steam Train

A small canal

Farming fields

Who thought this was okay for a bike path?!! 

Loads of sheep today

Sunny day views

River Severn continues

The Wyre Forest climb

Hills on the way up

And hills on the way down

Not another one of these!!!

Rail trails 

Bridge stop

A day of two halves - undulations and hills

Snack time!

River Severn, which we’ve been following for 125 miles

In the West Midlands now and looks like the route for today is 45 miles and the hills are back.  Not Cornwall hills, but looks like an up and down day.  We think we’re getting stronger, will be interesting today to see if that’s true.  We’re going to Bridgnorth in Shropshire today.

Although LEJOG was on Steve’s Bucket List, the physical aspect is on both our lists - investing in our physical future perhaps?  There are a lot of things we want to be able to do in this retirement and as we age and it looks like we’re going to have to train for it.  One of my favourite longevity doctors, Peter Attia, describes it as doing more now to combat the natural decline of aging, where you lose about 10% of your physical capability per decade from 40 onwards.  So if you can pedal 40 miles at 60 and you want to be able to do the same at 80, you have to really be able to pedal around 50 or more miles at 60.  Doing more now so we can hit our target activities in the coming years.

There are two things that go along with that - front end loading the physical aspects of retirement and making a list of the physical things that, if we have anything to do about it, we’ll be able to do as we get older.

About 5 years ago, we made a list of all the things we’d like to do in retirement.  All the advice is to cost that out so you’ll have enough money, which we did.  But then we mapped out the activities by retirement decade - what could we do physically at 79, 80, 90?  The physical things all had to be planned for and done in the first decade or two of retirement to have the best chance of getting them done - LEJOG had to be done in our 60s or we probably wouldn’t be able to do it later on.  Hiking the Dalesway needs to be done sooner than later, etc.

Beyond the big things list, there are the day to day things that I hadn’t really thought about until reading Attia’s book ‘Outlive’.  If I’m 80 or 90 🤞, what do I want to be able to do?  Because it seems you have to train for that too.  Lifting a (great) grandbaby, carrying groceries, climbing stairs, getting up off the floor, etc.

And to realise how challenging that is, we’ve now done 10 days of pedalling and the legs are still sore.

These are the things we ponder as we’re pedalling for miles and miles.

Back to the tour!  Getting in and out of towns is slow, but not on busy roads at all.  The route usually runs us through parks and along cycle paths when entering or leaving towns.  It will take up to an hour to get in or out, but it’s all on non-busy roads.

It was a hilly day today and close to the best one so far!  Mostly good cycleways, single lane roads and no traffic.  A lot of today was on rail trails, nicely graveled, smooth and running along high over valleys.  It was fun hearing the Severn Steam Train in the distance and then seeing it up close.  Went through the Wyre forest and butterfly preserve, both lovely.  

After a bit of narrow, slippy trail, we made it to Bridgnorth which has a lower and upper town.  We’re staying at the Parlor Hotel in the low town, close to the river and then climbed up into the high town for dinner at the Castle Pub for Friday Night is Steak Night.

Tired, but good 

Bridgnorth Low Town clock tower

The steps down to the low town

More steps

Friday night is steak night

Big steak night

The Castle Pub

A pot of tea!

So many great views!