Tour de West Country: Day Three

Bude to Minehead via lots of hills

With the Tour de France having a rest day, today was my chance to show those lazy pros how it’s done. I had a big day planned: the first of two days rejoicing in the sheer sides of Exmoor and its windswept interior.

I had arrived in Bude late the previous evening after my stuttering start — part of the reason why I didn’t manage to get yesterday’s edition out promptly (in fact, I may publish this one first) — so I was keen to get on the road with reasonable haste this morning. Unfortunately, tourists must day trip into Bude. Either that or they don’t need to eat on Sundays; regardless, there were no restaurants open when I ventured out looking for food and I found the town eerily deserted. I salvaged the evening by finding a pub that had deigned to open and watching the end of the Portugal’s victory in the European Championship, before reluctantly heading to a late-night takeaway.

Fast-forward to morning and I was ready to hit the road by half nine, the prospect of my toughest day yet dominating my thoughts. Today would be the day when I discovered whether I had enough gears (34x32) and, ultimately, fitness to achieve my goals. I’ve heard it said that the third day is the most common point of abandonment on long-distance endurance events: on the first day, you are full of enthusiasm for the upcoming challenge; on the second, you hurt but — hey — you’re just getting going and this gig is not supposed to be a cakewalk; by the third day, the second day’s pain has compounded the first’s and the cumulative, unremitting nature of the whole endeavour starts to sink in. No such worries here (so far…). I felt strong, relatively ache free and as well-prepared as I could be. No doubt many of the pros embark on a strength-sapping day in the Pyrenees fuelled by a full English and last night’s doner kebab. My bike, too, was holding up well despite being in need of a good clean. It had developed a slight rattle. While I couldn’t identify what was causing it, the noise quickly abated.

Despite my potential gastric anchor, the day started well. Out of Bude, the climbing was immediate, following a farm road straight over the top of yet another one of the hill formations that unfailingly populate the Cornish hinterland. Knowing that the day’s real brutes lay further east in Exmoor, I perhaps underestimated how strenuous this first leg of the day would be. Let’s say it got the blood to my legs flowing. Leaving town, the road rose quickly to the A39, which I so enjoyed descending yesterday. I followed it for a short while before turning right onto a small lane. The start of the meat of the climb was a sustained steep section that ramped up demoralisingly in front of me, a tarmac cleft in the dense bracken flanking the hill. Eventually, the road levelled out and I followed an undulating ridge that occasionally yielded views over the surrounding country, usually over the gate to a field that was otherwise surrounded by unnecessarily high hedgerows. The clouds were thick and heavy, lending an oppressive air to the ride. Surprisingly, I only once caught a very light shower.

The descent from the ridge began. Over a small bridge and my two-day fling with Cornwall was forgotten. Here was Devon, and the heady anticipation of exploring the orogenous zones of a new companion spurred me on. Unfortunately, fickle mistress as she is, it seems Devon disliked my presumptuousness. A few short miles later on a descent, I was brought to a crunching halt, unable to pedal. My pannier rack had thrown two screws at the axle and crashed down onto my rear wheel, acting like the brake on a shopping trolley. It looked like the screws used by the shop where I bought the bike had not been long enough, causing what was potentially a very serious incident. Had I been going much faster, such a sudden failure could have caused me to lose control. I dread to think what the outcome would have been if it had happened during yesterday’s 50mph descent of the A39.

Luckily there was no substantial damage. I was able to cannibalise a couple of screws from my unused front pannier fixings, which made the rig rideable again, albeit with a reduced number of available gears. A chastening object lesson in fully isolating and remedying any unexplained noises your bike is making. I resolved to push on to Barnstaple, where I had planned to eat lunch, and find a bike shop there. In total, the incident would cost me more than an hour, once you factor in my later visit to the excellent Bike Shed in Barnstaple. Not for me the support car and a replacement bike taken for granted by the cosseted pros.

Over some more undulations, notably including a sharp 16% stem-chewer, the road began a lovely short descent into the Torridge valley — confusingly towards Torrington — where the scenery became noticeably more verdant. I passed a pristine, expensive-looking agricultural vehicle piloted from the cab by a chino-and-shirt-clad farmer. What will pay for his pastel Ralph Laurens when we lose the agricultural subsidy?

Devon and I got back on speaking terms when I reached the Tarka Trail. At this point running along an abandoned railway track, it frequently crosses the meanders of the Torridge. The wooded slopes brought to mind the Forest of Dean. There was a notably long incline at one point. While it was obviously at a shallow grade compared to some of the lumps I have traversed this week, the effort required up the drag really brought home the enormous pulling power required by railway engines to convince their immensely heavy rolling stock to defy gravity’s pull.

Gradually, wooded valley and tight meanders gave way to a wider, more languid river and the trail hugged the shore as the Torridge and Taw converged in an estuary. Before long I arrived in Barnstaple.

By the time I had visited the bike shop and been to Tesco to refule, I ended up crossing the bridge at Barnstaple three times before setting off again. Another predictably immediate climb out of town quickly (slowly) saw me reach 800ft or so. For the first time, I saw the high, daunting slopes of Exmoor looming ahead of me. I headed down into Brayford, where the climb would begin, praying that I wouldn’t lose too much height; every metre lost would have to be gruellingly regained. Beside the river in Brayford, I had dipped back below 500ft, leaving almost 1100 vertical feet to the point where I would top out in gaining the moor.

Our friends contesting Le Tour would dismiss such a climb as a small bump in the road, but — as you can probably tell — it felt rather significant to me. Psychologically, the climb had been looming over me all day and — while I didn’t doubt my ability to get up it, eventually — I knew there were a couple of points where the gradient reared up to a potentially unsustainable level given my heavily-laden frame. I was contemplating the fact I might violate cycling’s cardinal commandment: “Thou shalt not stop on an ascent. Ever.” And unless the incline is so steep the bike is literally doing a backflip, the failure point is always mental. If the hill is steep enough and your speed low enough, you have so little momentum that you cannot coast for even a split-second. Keeping the crank turning is vital and you only have to lose your resolve for one pedal stroke before the game is up. If you look at the pros, they are experts at extracting every last bit of advantage from their momentum. The cost of gaining it is high, but once you have it the investment to maintain it is often worth the effort, allowing you to find a good rhythm. One of the things I find liberating about touring is that I am able to shut off the part of my brain that has to take on every hill as hard as possible and instead allow the world to flow towards and over me. The downside of this mindset is that it breeds a temptation to switch down to too low a gear at the sight of any little speed bump, sacrificing momentum and destroying my rhythm. The problem with such an approach on a hill like this is that you have failed to keep your psychological powder dry, sacrificing all your speed too early for temporary respite and having no recourse if the going gets tougher. Knowing you have no more gears left on a climb, that you are in the “granny gear”, weighs on you, especially when the ascent will take half an hour.

In the event, I managed to keep going all the way to the top. It was bloody painful, but the road was quiet enough that I could reduce the gradient slightly on the steeper sections by using its full width. Suddenly aware of the stiff wind on the exposed top and feeling cold, I turned right to follow the top edge of the escarpment. What followed was a traversal of the moor and a long, glorious descent to the pretty village of Dulverton. At first, the primary view was outwards, with the dark hulk of Dartmoor visible on the horizon. The weather started to improve as I turned inwards onto the high moor, eyed with suspicion by wary cattle. In the lee of a slight slope, I was struck by a fantastic stillness. I slowly pedalled along the winding road, savouring the incredible solitude. The sun came out.

The last kilometre down into Dulverton was incredibly steep and I was hard on the brakes. Valleys are often pretty symmetrical, so this worried me; in this case, what goes down must come back up. Dulverton itself was very pretty. I passed through around 5pm, at what passes for rush hour in these parts. I watched a couple of 4x4s arguing over a parking space outside the Coop. Leaving the village behind, my wariness was validated as the road ramped up. The first mile was an absolute brute, likely harder than my initial ascent. Eventually, the road straightened and settled into a steady, shallow grade. The effect looking back over my shoulder at the receding floor of Devon and Somerset was incredible. At the top, I had planned to follow a smaller road straight over. Seeing the view and that my intended route was flanked with dense trees, I chose instead to take the cross road, which took primary position on the ridge. I was rewarded with stunning views northwest to Dunkery Beacon at the heart of Exmoor, with its cairn clearly visible at the summit.

At Wheddon Cross, I turned onto the impeccable A396 for an exhilerating descent through the Avill valley. Much more technical than yesterday’s and on a quieter road, I enjoyed it even more. Unfortunately, the reason for the incredibly smooth ride was soon revealed to me. At Cowbridge, workers were preparing to resurface a long stretch of the road and had covered several miles in a layer of hardcore. There was a speed limit of 20mph imposed, but I could barely manage half that before my thin tyres began to slip. Unfortunately the same wasn’t true of some of the lorries heading the other way far too quickly, sending stones flying and leaving dense clouds of dust in their wake. I emerged in the excruciatingly picturesque village of Dunster. A small climb on a backroad with a view over the Bristol Channel to Wales and I descended into Minehead. Another day finished, and another one marked by the stark transitions between different scenery. The hills here may be on a small scale compared with some parts of the world, but in our dramatically varied countryside we are truly blessed.

Numbers:

Distance — 85 miles

Ascent — 5900 feet

Bolts from the blue — 1

Sense of accomplishment — large