After the best full cooked breakfast yet, and an amazing home made compote, we set off from York Cottage B&B with a deep sense of foreboding based on the appalling weather forecast. We were expecting a drenching!
Waterproofs were donned on the edge of Bristol when we stopped for a mug of tea at a roadside burger van, but we only had a steady spit of rain and nothing more. They soon came off again. We took the scenic cycle way around the north east edge of the city (see photo) and kept off the roads almost completely, then continued along the route all the way to the Severn Bridge on back roads.
Here we met up with Maeve for a tea and snack and a pannier-content adjustment for Joe. Leaving the service area we firstly met a group of 3 ex-military riders cycling a JOGLE in 6.5 days for Help For Heroes (they'd already done a LEJOG!), and then ran into the James Cracknell Ride Across Britain tour group who passed us coming the opposite way from Severn Bridge all the way to St Briavels! That was an awful lot of cyclists to wave hello to !!
A sandwich stop around Coleford kept us going for the rest of the journey and the waterproofs were needed in anger for the last 10 miles. Even so, it was a great day and the constant light tailwind really helped (even if it wasn't the southerly gale that was forecast!). The last bit all the way up the Wye Valley on a single track road was great.
We got the last available table at the pub and pondered the 80-miler we have to look forward to tomorrow. Hmmm!
Stats : 69.9 miles at 10.5mph avg; 6hrs 38mins saddle-time; 1150m ascent
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