Minehead is amazing, but a killer...

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I woke very early Sunday morning, and with very little to do before I cycled, I was off fairly early too. This worked in my favour at the start of the ride as the route was very quiet, unlike the return, but I had planned to have lunch in Plymouth, but I was back at the van by 1pm, so didn't bother. Being back early also meant I spent most of the afternoon sitting around. Which is something I'm beginning to realise about this trip. In my head, I would be cycling every day I wasn't driving, and for the most I have, but I have found that when the cycling Is finished I have nothing to do, except stare at Facebook or Strava (hence my data limit is almost up). Part of me wants to go back out on the bike, but once I've showered and packed up, I don't really want too, plus I need an objective or a reason, and down to the shops or up the road and back just doesn't do it for me.

Like I said the route was fairly quiet at the start, and bloody hilly, which didn't help my unready legs to get comfortable. By about half way a fair few people had arrived and it was getting busy. Then on the return, the family's had arrived, so you had dogs and kids to negotiate. Along the route on the map, from the tourist board, it had a couple of tunnels highlighted that would require lights. Now I just assumed this was more to see each other rather than the path inside, as I assumed they would only be short tunnels so the light from the other end would light the way. Now assumption is the mother of all what? So rather than take my powerful lights I packed a £3 set of blinkers, and at the beginning of the first tunnel, after a photo or two, I tried to switch it on. No luck! It had corroded inside so not even new batteries would make it work, and the tunnels were very long, to the point where if they hadn't installed some dull lamps I would have been using my hand on the side of the wall to see where I was going. But even with these quite dull lamps, it still got very dark in places, so you had to cycle on blind faith, and hope there was nothing in the way! By the second tunnel, which was much longer, I had decided to put my rear red light on the front as this would show me to others and just about light the area in front of the bike ( well it sort of did). When I got to Plymouth there was a closed section on the route so rather than start riding in traffic, I decided to check out route 2 which also reaches Plymouth. Route 2 is the one I used to get to the new forest from home two years ago. It starts in Dover and goes all the way to St Austell. Well 500 yards in and there was a fallen tree over the path, which I should have seen as an omen, and turned back, but I didn't, I just stepped over it and continued. One of the things this part of route 2 takes you past, is the sewage works, and today it stunk! It then enters an industrial estate that exits on to a busy road, and not being a fan of routes like this I turn around and headed back to the campsite, and yes this did mean I had to pass the sewage works again.

Now as I'm cycling alone with no one to talk to, I listen to music from my Bluetooth speaker, but this can also be used as an annoyance too. For example while cycling back, I had a guy overtake me ridiculously close without even a good morning, so I followed him past some slower cyclists, and stuck a few meters behind him. Now I was in no hurry, so wasn't going full throttle unlike this guy, who was constantly looking over his shoulder, hearing my music/bad singing and would accelerate to lose me. So I would accelerate to keep with him, even on a hill where he stood up I stuck with him, until the inevitable happened and he pulled over and stopped. This is my victory! I love this part as I cycle past triumphantly still with plenty of energy to finish the climb (just). Maybe next time he'll be more courteous to other cyclists and maybe say good morning too. I did this to a guy in Canterbury who was determined not to let me past my on a cycle lane, till again he got fed up of my choice of music. Bohemian rhapsody seems to be the best for it, probably because it's one of few songs I know all the words too.

I got to Tavistock and made my way back to the campsite, and tried to go a longer way, but this took me to a bastard hill that I no longer had the energy for, so at the top I just headed straight to camp. After a quick plate of cheesy pasta and carrot, I got a shower, then did the washing up. All this meant I had next to nothing to do all afternoon. Now I probably could have driven some where, but once I have the van parked I like to leave as such, plus I'm not really a touristy type, so looking at old mansions or museums just doesn't appeal to me. So I browsed the internet and watched a film.

Monday morning I again woke fairly early, so got a shower and began packing up, so I was out by 9am. For some reason I thought it was 150 miles to the next campsite in Minehead, but it was only 70, so I ended up driving to Minehead beach to park up and wonder around town. This was, to be honest, a waste of time as there was much to look at, so I stopped at a pub called the Hairy dog. It was a bit of a Weatherspoons type of joint, and the staff were as friendly as one too, but the food was ok. After this I found a key cutters, as I have no spares for the back door or side lockers, and the guy in Ashford was going on about needing to call the wholesalers for them, but this place didn't. So in a matter of minutes he was done. Unfortunately the new keys were completely plain, and when I asked about having them engraved, they claimed it was extremely expensive, and told me to buy some nail varnish to colour code them. So my next stop was Poundland to buy nail varnish, and as this was my first time of buying some, of course I bought the wrong thing. I was looking for bold, solid colours, but ended up with a pie blue and clear pink, which is not what they looked like in the bottle. By now it was checking in time at the site, so I made my way up an absolute bastard of a hill, along a single track road, praying no one came the other way. The site was very similar, in the fact that I had to break out the ramps again, where I found out Bob doesn't like to reverse up the ramps, but is fine going up them in first. After a bit of plot choosing, I parked facing the sun to charge the batteries. I was hoping it was south, but the compass on the iPhone is absolutely useless, one minute it says I'm facing north (with the sun in my face at 2pm??), then it spins round saying I'm actually facing east, only to then spin off again, in the end I just ignored it, and excepted I should be in the right direction. It has taken the van two days to fully charge the batteries, but as I write this I have the laptop plugged into the inverter, so it will probably now need another good day of sun. That evening after dinner, I decided I didn't want to just sit around waiting for bed, so I cycled up the road and back, along a few off road tracks. This was a good indication as to what tomorrows ride was going to be like, as the hills are vicious, to the point where I was almost out of breath just pedalling out of the damn site! The tracks they have here are very rocky, so a bit of fun to go down, but almost impossible to cycle back up, as the front wheel bounces all over the place and the back looses traction constantly.

Tuesday morning I had a big fry up for breakfast, before setting off on my ride to Ilfracombe. Now on the site I use to plan my cycle routes, it had claimed I would be cycling over 10k feet of climbing, so I knew it was going to be a challenging day, but the climbs were relentless. Another good indication of how hard the tracks were going to be, was from the first down hill I did, only a few miles in. It was covered in loose rocks, and at points just dropped down the side of the hill, so severely I was on the brakes constantly. The first major climb came just after Porlock, with the sign "unsuitable for vehicles" at the beginning. At first it was tarmac and not too bad to climb, it then became rocky and rutted, but still cycle-able. Then I turned a corner and looked at a wall, that was pointing straight to the sky, and was made up of destroyed tarmac, with pot holes bigger than my wheels, but I attemped it, until i bounced the front wheel off a broken piece of tarmac, and nearly fell of the back of the rearing bike and roll to the bottom of the hill. The down hill after wasn't a great deal better, as the 920 has no suspension, and my hands were starting to ache from braking and bouncing of the rocks. The next climb start the moment I exited the dirt track on to the road, and was at least tarmac, but still relentless, with a couple of false horizons to rub salt in to the wound. Once I finally crossed the top and dropped down to the main road, I looked at the track in front of me and decided to use the track just up the hill from it, as it looked a smoother route, but a couple of meters down it, there was a gate with "private" signs, so I had to turn around and take the original track. This wasn't too bad, but the view once I was out of the trees, was awe inspiring, and I had to stop for a moment to take it all in. This was the theme of this route, every time you got to the top of a gruelling climb, you were meet with an amazing view, that made all the hard work worth it (well mostly). At the end of this track I joined an undulating road that went through a few villages, all the while I was surrounded by huge hills either side, thinking at some point I'm going to have to climb out of here. It was after this thought I hit the first of three climbs, which had a 20% sign at the beginning, then the next was immediately after, and had a 25% sign. It was on this one that a horse rider stopped her horse and yelled something at me. When I asked her to repeat by putting my hand up to my ear, she yelled "were you saying hello to me?" , which confused the hell out of me, till she exclaimed I must say hello to the horse or it will think I'm a predator. At which point I wanted to rip into her that NO I was NOT trying to say hello, as at this point I'm blowing out my arse trying to climb a bitch of a hill, and in no way able to have a conversation with your damn horse! Now I understand slowing down near a horse and giving it plenty of room, and saying good morning loudly so the rider knows your approaching from behind, but at no point that day do I believe the horse saw a florescent green blob, puffing along a 3mph as a predator. But regardless, rather than telling this muppet where to stick her horse, I just repeated hello at it, while carrying on. Later I wondered if it may have been a foreign horse, so it wouldn't have understood what I was saying anyway, and still thought I was going to eat it / make it into glue. The next hill was a 16%, but seemed to go on for a long while before i reached the top.

Now in my head, seeing what the route had been so far, and the fact I was only a quarter of the way there, I set a time limit of 1pm. At this point, where ever I was, I would find somewhere to eat then turn around. This turned out to be a deserted pub, that I intitially pasted at 12:50, but with the road dropping into another valley, I cut my losses, and turned back, then ate there. I ordered an Exmoor beast burger, without really giving it much consideration, till it arrived on my table, and lived up to its name of beast. The burger was massive, layers of cheese and bacon, between two steak sized burgers, with tomato, lettuce and onion rings inside two huge buns, and held together by a steak knife down through the middle. Then to finish it had an almighty mound of fries next to it! When I finished, I did have to sit around in the sun for a while before leaving, just to give it a while to digest some of it. This time round the hills seemed worse, wether this was because I had stopped for an hour or I had just lost all my energy, but my legs weren't having it, so I has to walk the 20% before I collapsed and again rolled to the bottom. The route through the villages was ok but I knew what was still to come. And at the bottom of the dirt track I looked up at the large rocks on what looked like a steep gradient, I walked the last part until it levelled out a bit, and got back on the bike. Once on the tarmac it was too bad, and the uphills were doable, but the track with broken tarmac lumps was next. I tried to ride down it, but the pain in my hands was too much and when the back wheel bounced and nearly bucked me over the handle bar, I jumped off and walked down that part. As this pattern of walking the rough stuff had started I couldn't stop thinking about the last climb of the day, which I had no way of avoiding as it was the only way backup to the van. But by now even walking became a struggle, so I had to stop several times just to put some energy back into my legs, so I could push the bike to the top. Once on the road I dropped down the hill and did my best to pedal fast enough to maintain the momentum, which worked out well, so the last undulating climbs went quickly. Back at the van, I put the kettle on and just sat there till I had enough energy back to get a shower.

Today I couldn't decide what to do so I just chilled in the sun, listening to the radio, and writing this. After dinner, I'll take the full suss out on to some of these tracks, just to see what level of recovery my legs are at. While I've got the site wifi working, at last, I started looking at where to go next, I then realised that I didn't have a great deal of time left so my next stop will be Salisbury plains, where my Dad and nephew Rory will be joining me of the weekend. Again, the original plan was to head into Wales after checking out the west, but today I studied my spending, an realised that I can only afford to drive 200 miles a week, which I surpassed this week. That, with the parts I needed from Halfords and the cycle shop, meant that I spent four times the budget for the last week. Now this doesn't mean I'll only be buying Tesco value beans and bread till I go to France, as I did Have a bit spare, but I could be using the credit card to get back into the country in September. With this in mind I will probably head back towards Weymouth and the new forest for a week each just to use less fuel, and dump the van somewhere and just ride, plus i might need to stop eating at nice pubs quite so much.

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