Wednesday 1 April 2009

Thursday 21st August – JOGLE Day 11: Wormelow to Woodpeckers guesthouse, Lower Langford. 62 miles travelled.





Where Our Narrator And His Partner In Crime Cross The Severn Bridge And Nearly End Up On The M5, And Will Falls Of His Stationary Bicycle While Ray And A Flock Of Passing Motorists Look On And Laugh.

Day 11 dawned pleasantly bright and sunny, although Ray and I ignored the alarm as it went off at 7:00 and then 7:30. It was painful getting up, but it is amazing what you can get used to and so we flung some clothes on and headed down to breakfast at The Lawns. We were greeted by Ralph and Elizabeth and their small black dog who was having a great time chasing a ball around, and we tucked into a vast range of cereals and some absolutely delicious local apple juice. Cue the usual shenanigans: Ray eating, me choking food down, and our hosts looking insulted that I hadn’t eaten as much as the skinny feller on the other side of the table.

Our clean cycle gear had been drying atop the Aga overnight, and we were handed this in a basket as we climbed the stairs dodging small dogs chasing balls as we went. Once dressed we descended to check over the steeds, both of whom looked decidedly perky after a night inside. We had sachets of electrolyte-replacements thrust upon us by our hosts, and we spent some time discussing the route with Ralph before regretfully taking our leave of them. We mounted up outside, and were waved off as we headed down the drive and back to the A466, turning right at the main road towards Monmouth and points south.

The morning was lovely: the sun was out in a sky full of fluffy white clouds, and there was a gentle cooling breeze that took the edge off the heat. We passed along a gently rolling road and were enjoying the ride as much as one can when literally everything hurts. Still, on the positive side, Ralph had told us that it was a straightforward run down into Monmouth without any particularly steep hills.

Ralph was a dirty liar it turned out, because we were heading up a steep rise when a lady popped her head over the hedgerow to wish us good luck. We felt puzzled, but smiled and carried on regardless. Eight minutes of puffing later we reached the top of a bitch of a steep hill, soaked in sweat and somewhat of a mind to go back and inform Ralph just what we thought of his ‘gently rolling’ comment: Ralph had obviously only ever driven up it in his big car. That said the prospect of doing it again left me feeling that it might be best to carry on, and so we urged our steeds onwards; the Manly Steed wouldn’t have had a word said against Ralph anyway after they let it stay indoors the night before.

Monmouth was reached after a long and pleasant downhill stretch into the town centre, and we decided to stop and ask for directions to a bike shop as I was down to the last few scoops of Assos chamois cream, and my ass was definitely feeling the lack of chafing prevention. We randomly chose a couple completely at random who were randomly stood nattering on the pavement (he with many a facial piercing and long hair, her with a generous cleavage, long blonde hair and lithe figure) and got directions to a shop at the bottom of the town just over a bridge. We thanked them politely, and left them to continue down the high street and over the bridge. The Manly Steed wanted to go back and ask the nice blonde lady some more questions, but we sadly had no time. Ah, Monmouth: you will forever hold a place in our hearts.

The bike shop was no help whatsoever. The owner had never heard of Assos, didn’t stock chamois cream, and when I enquired as to whether he might have anymore saddles (yes people, it had got that bad!) he had none really as he had sold out yesterday. In fact, everything was sold out yesterday.

I left the chap to it, we remounted, and I once more realised that when you have a long way to go you just have to get on with it and accept that it’s going to hurt, and hurt a lot. We wended our way back to the A466, crossed another bridge, and were back on track pedalling towards Chepstow crossing the border between England and Wales a number of times as went. We left Monmouth behind, and quickly were into farmland with a lot of forests blanketing the hills around us. Just as we starting to get back into our stride we passed some hawthorn hedgerows which had just been cut by a large tractor with an industrial strimmer on it.

We tried to dodge the worst of the debris on the road and I noticed what looked like a white piece of paper stuck on the front tyre. Upon stopping to inspect it, it turned out to be a piece of wood. When I pulled it off the tyre, it actually turned out to be a two-inch hawthorn spike which was embedded in the Manly Steed’s front wheel, which immediately began to bleed air out at a furious rate with a loud hissing noise.

“Ray!!” I shouted, and we immediately got the Manly Steed propped on its seat-post and handlebars to facilitate a speedy removal of the front tyre. Ray donned a pair of yellow marigolds which he had been saving for just such an occasion, and while I tried to soothe the Steed he sat down with the wheel in front of him.

Without looking up, he put his oil smeared hand out, all business. “Tyre levers?”

I passed it over to him. “Tyre levers.” I said. “There are three, but you should only need two.”
Ray bravely dug in and got the stiff Armadillo tyre off, and the tube popped out spent and wasted. You could almost see the Manly Steed recoil at such a grievous sight.

“Inner tube.” He said, hand out.

“Inner tube.” I replied, ripping it out of its box, and slapping it into his hand. “My god,” I said. “There’s so much oil.”

“It’s going to be fine.” He replied “There’s always more oil than you think. Just keep it together!”

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

“Find me a plastic bag. We’re going to need it for these gloves.”

Ten minutes later the wheel was reattached, and I spent some time reassuring the Manly Steed that everything was going to be all right. Ray clapped me on the back, and continued to pump some more air into the wheel. Bike recovery rates being what they are, we were back on the road again a couple of minutes afterwards, muttering to ourselves as we passed the architect of our most recent drama in his big tractor. The architect looked at us and smiled: he knew what he had done.

The road passed through heavy woodland for the next few miles, and we paralleled the river in the valley on our right until we came to a bridge. I took that moment to take a couple of photos and put some more air into the tyre, and once more the inner tube went with a loud hissing noise.

Cursing mightily I started to change the damn thing again, and Ray pedalled back to help as I seemed to have an uncanny knack of cocking things up that day. Tube once more changed, Ray carefully pumped the tyre up while I swore and cursed at the world in general. The Manly Steed bore it all stoically – I guess you can get used to anything, even minor surgery on the side of a road.

Once more, we remounted and I took pains to avoid riding over anything that looked unfriendly. We passed through the incredibly quaint village of Tintern, seeing the Abbey on our right swathed in scaffolding. After that we slogged our way up past the Devil’s Pulpit and soon were heading into Chepstow seeing signs for the racecourse as we went. Out of nowhere, it seemed, I caught a glimpse of the Severn Bridge, and I felt my heart leap.

Ten minutes later we joined the M48 (on the pavement!!) as it ran down to the bridge and we pedalled out over the brown water of the River Severn hundreds of feet below us. The Severn Bridge is, quite frankly, a suicidalist’s dream as there are long drops on the left and fast moving traffic on the right, both providing a cyclist with a game of Russian Roulette as he goes: a strong gust of wind in the wrong place and who knows where you can end up.

Our sense of vertigo somewhat excited at the drop below us, we rode carefully across the river and passed once more and for the final time on our journey back into England. We stopped for photos as we went, and I could not believe the spiritual lift I felt after a frustrating morning of stops and starts.

We found our way to the services on the Bristol side of the Severn and hit the Little Chef once more for some lunch, only to be aghast at finding the new menu hadn’t reached this far south. That said, hot food arrived quickly, and if it wasn’t as tasty as it could have been it made up for it in quantity. A quick call to Mike got him hunting for accommodation for us, and we got ourselves up and ready to carry on.

We remounted with a sense of excitement, and I was eager to get past Bristol and out into the final legs of our journey. We opted to skirt the city centre and pick up the A403 and follow it around to the A4, after which we would pick up the A38 out past Bristol Airport. The weather turned very hot, and for the first time in an age we were able to remove both our arm and leg warmers, and cycle in strong sunshine through a lot of industrial units, passing the other Severn Bridge on our right as we went.

Our seemingly simple plan of joining the A4 turned into something more complex when we found that there were extensive road works on two roundabouts, and that the kind work men had removed all of the signposts as part of this.

Ray took charge in a strong and leaderly way. (No, it’s not a word but it should be. Neither is suicidalist apparently, but I still used it.) With a cry of “Come on!!” he headed off into a cloud of steaming tarmac, and the Manly Steed and I shrugged and followed, catching him up as cars started accelerating past us and the blue signs above clearly stated that we were cycling onto the M5.

After a certain amount of swearing, we battled our way back up the hard shoulder and took refuge on a side road. We were screwed as the map we had was a road atlas and didn’t show street names, and we couldn’t tell where the hell we were.

It was as if I heard a discrete cough from the disgraced Garmin, and I switched it on praying that it had enough battery power. A couple of minutes later we were on the A4 and heading for Clifden and its suspension bridge, and the sat-nav was once more in our good books after the debacle of Preston.

Bristol has apple trees everywhere. Loads of them. Ray and I were hard pressed to avoid all of the windblown apples in the road as we went, but soon we were pedalling under the Clifden suspension bridge and pedalling fast to avoid the rush-hour craziness of white vans and people carriers.

A quick stop at another Halfords gave us some more inner tubes but no chamois cream, and so I manned up once more and we found our way to the A38. There is a big hill outside of Bristol: we had been told about this a number of times, but I was fairly sure that we could make our way up it as we had conquered some brutes in the past days. What I didn’t factor into my thinking was that there would be a traffic jam up it as the workers of Bristol seemingly fled to the country after a long day’s work.

This elicited further swearing as we cycled up a number of pavements, and we stopped for a breather after twenty minutes of pedalling uphill. At this juncture, I covered myself in glory. I clipped my feet into the pedals, and decided to use the downhill gradient to get moving rather than pedalling, which turned into a less than graceful sideways collapse as the Manly Steed and I overbalanced.

Ray laughed a lot after checking that I was all right. So did the seven or eight car-loads of people who happened to be stationary next to me.

The remainder of the climb was as nothing compared to my injured pride, and we flashed past Bristol Airport on right, and then into one of the most exciting downhill rides of my life, where the Manly Steed and I managed to clock 41mph, a personal best for us.

Mike called and directed us to the ‘The Woodpeckers’ B&B, and we turned left off the road just before Lower Langford into the front drive of a pleasant house at about 18:30 where we were met by Sue and Colin, our hosts for the evening.

We stowed the steeds in the garage and left them no doubt muttering about the quality of their accommodation, went in and got showered. I was now so absolutely chafed on my backside that I spent a fair amount of time shaving the affected areas to try to cut down on irritating friction inducing spots. Ray declined to have a shave afterwards (we were sharing as he had left his behind somewhere) and said that he was thinking of growing a beard anyway.

Dinner was eaten in the Stag & Hounds, a busy pub further up the road, and washed down with some local ales. We spoke to our loved ones, and limped back and collapsed into bed by about 22:00. It had been a long day, with some frustrating moments, and my knee had pinged again in Bristol which didn’t help, but we were still moving and we hadn’t had to give up. I felt that all that was left of me was my determination to keep going, and Ray’s solid presence buoyed me when I was struggling to keep going.
Sleep came not a bit too soon.

2 comments:

  1. The tale of roadside surgery on the manly steed had me on the edge of my seat. Gripping stuff.

    ReplyDelete