Bee Stings Make You Faster

Let's face it, when you return a stat like the new PB below you have to be interested in why it could have occurred.

That's not just beating previous best, that's blowing a hole in it - with a torpedo. But why?
Let's start with some basics - I was fitter in 2018 than I am now, a sequence of injuries and 3 months of whooping cough has seen to that. So I should have been slower. I don't have a different bike; a different saddle and seat-post yes, but nothing that would account for a 21% improvement. So what else was different?
Riding through Bason Bridge (yes, that is how you spell it) towards the base of Woolavington I was stung by a bee; stung five times as it turns out (thus dispelling the myth that all bees can only sting once). On that; honey bees have barbed stings so they do the famous sting once and then die routine. Bumble bees have un-barbed stings which, from their point of view, is a far better 'design' and it was thus able to deliver multiple jabs. Thanks bee. Now, says the Australian Society for Clinical Immunoly and Allergy, (presumably among others) - when the body is stung that causes stress and we respond to this by producing adrenaline. Figures, but I wouldn't have said I was that stressed by the sting. It hurt; but not like getting attached to the wrong end of hornet (been there, don't, much much pain). Whatever I consciously thought, it seems my body disagreed and desired me well away from there, in this case up Woolavington Hill, before a similar injection of pain could be further inflicted. That adrenaline is associated with fight or flight is well known, I was better equipped for flight. And then adrenaline is also produced as a defence against anaphylaxis (severe allergic reactions). But I don't have severe reactions to bee stings, I've been stung before with only normal amounts of pain. So..?
Well, the only other difference is that, as a result of the whooping cough mentioned above, my doc has me on an asthma inhaler. Now if you follow cycling news you may be aware of asthma inhalers having caused issues where they are alleged to have been used for performance enhancement. But those are the blue ones; salbutamol being the relevant chemical. Mine doesn't have that; I did wonder and am glad to find it doesn't. It does have corticosteroids though, a class of drug that the UCI is planning to (may have by now) ban if taken in pill form as WADA has found that it 'probably does have performance enhancing effects' - good job I only have an inhaler then!
So if the inhaler isn't doing enough to get it banned from UCI competitions then it isn't going to send me up that hill 21% faster. Must be the bees. For the record, I don't intend keeping a small store of bees about me on the bike in future for use just before starred segments or group ride sprints; I'm just not prepared to suffer enough to succeed after all!

A 65 mile day off

It was Wednesday when I came up with the route for the club ride for Saturday; not of itself remarkable except that I hadn't been out with the club (PacTri) for over a month having not been well. The forecast for Saturday as seen from Thursday wasn't great; on Friday it was awful. I took the plunge, it's not a thing one does, but I announced that I wasn't going on the Saturday ride even though I'd planned it. Tush!
About an hour later the phone rang. Suzy. The weather in Gloucestershire won't be as bad as the weather in Somerset says she. Let's go and ride the Jack and Grace audax route. I wasn't hard to convince, I wanted to get out. I'd hardly ridden for six weeks.
As planned - meet for a 9am start from Aztec West (North West Bristol). Three of us there; Suzy, Dave and myself. The initial mile or so will never count as wonderful; it's just escaping Bristol. Then there's the swooping downhill of Fernhill and I was flying. Flying with what felt like a wobbly wheel. Puncture? No. Don't know. Perhaps just the effect of sidewind but that doesn't seem right. I stopped,investigated, found nothing and continued. That was the last of it for the day -perhaps just mud stuck on a wheel.
The northbound section of the Jack and Grace Cotton Memorial audax route comes with a suitable supply of short, steepish small hills...

...exactly the sort of thing that simulated short efforts on a turbo will help with. I've been on the turbo twice a week of late. Zoom. They have an interesting range of catapults at a couple of the chateaux of the Dordogne valley; I don't think I'd have gone up those banks much quicker if I'd been sent from one. Wind assistance - that is what we shall call it. We knew we were getting considerable wind assistance; there was a fairly strong wind from the south. We knew it would be harder on the way back - we were right. In spades! More later. For the moment we were simply enjoying the tail wind. No hands worked well, just sit up (keep pedalling) and use the wind on my back to help blow me along. I may have only been half way up the strava segment times for that section; but this was basically wind power - some effort from me, but not a lot (for anyone not familiar with Strava - how? - the segment is the purple bit on the map).

At Longney (where the purple bit stops) the majority of folk stopped for a coffee and to get their audax cards signed. Now this is where the confession comes in; we were riding the route but not as official audax riders. Bad! We'd been too late to enter on line, entries were closed as the event was full. I had tried to pay at the desk in the morning but there was no facility to pay by card and I had no cash. Possibly that's a bit like Ford offering to pay by American Express (only those old enough to remember Hitch Hiker's Guide have any chance with that one). We were willing to pay for coffee but Suzy's exploration of the queue said that going on was a better idea, So we did.
A little more northerly cruising was followed by 'the turn', two 90ish degree corners and we were pedalling south into the full force of that not so gentle breeze that had pushed us north. Suddenly it was hard work. The advent of rain was not welcome. There was a point where we had to stop at traffic lights on a junction with road works for a while, quite a peloton built waiting for the lights to change of which I was sat at the back. Starting off a fellow rider and I had an agreement of line, which is to say we both tried to occupy the same bit of road. I pulled out of the impending collision; I'm not sure he'd even know there had been one, and was thereby dropped by about 5m off the back of the group. I knew it would be hard to bridge it back. The group had strong riders at the front and the rest had wind protection. It took me most of half a kilometre to be back in the bunch with my heart rate monitor reading well into threshold numbers. Still, only about 30 miles of into the wind to do!
Stonehouse has a cafe  - oh blessed Stonehouse. 
I was in some need of that coffee - and a pastie. They didn't have a pastie. They did have some panini things. The young lad that brought it to me warned me it might be hot so I treated it with due caution. Many thanks for the warning; a snippet and I put it down, waited the equivalent of a period before the next reduction in rail prices and tried again. Pleasant - and so necessary. Then there was the little matter of re-packing. The bit you don't know is that Dave had need of tools early in the ride to adjust his front mechanism. Not an issue, he'd plenty, I'd more. My mini-saddle bag didn't want to do up after getting them out though; it's been on the way out for a while. Removing the cash for the cafe from it, or rather trying to do it up after having done so, proved it's death knell. The anchoring strap tore through and the zip evaporated. No - really, a vapour is made of lots of tiny particles of liquid acting like a gas. The bag was so wet the tiny bits that it dropped into had no problems imitating a liquid and their free distribution was gas like. Anyway, it was dead. the contents would have to go into the pockets of my tops. They did but my trusty 'bag mudguard' is no more, all road crud could now spray straight up my back. Yurgh. Helpful young man (he of the 'hot warning') happily let me put the remains of the bag into their bin. Brave.
After the cafe it somehow all seemed easier. It helped that there seemed to be a suitable supply of wheels to jump on and groups to work between. Granted the section where I sat on Suzy's wheel through the muckiest of lanes gave me a horrid taste in the mouth; mud and worse for sure, but the miles ticked down and I seemed to get stronger. To be leading groups back together, moving from one to the next, sitting in for a while, moving to the front and pulling that group up to the next kept me amused for the best part of 10 miles; as well as surprising me considerably that I could do it after several weeks out ill before this one. Dave decided he'd take the easy flat way home, as he said - doing 65 miles when you're used to 45 is a considerable undertaking so that it was hardly surprising he started to get dropped on the uphill sections. He'd done his share earlier though having put in a considerable shift on the front for those hard miles to the cafe.
None of the cars or tired cyclists in Bristol actually killed me. One cyclist had a really good go, forcing me across the road as he assumed I would be going into the final audax checkpoint and came out of it straight across the front of me. I forgive him readily - we should have paid and therefore been going in to get our cards stamped not to mention that we'd all been fighting the wind for 30 miles or more. Let's hear it for long rides in January. I haven't heard yet what the ride was like for those that went out to do the route I'd originally planned. My bail out rest day will only take two or three to recover from.

Not Terminally Silly

Cycling from Mark towards Woolavington across the levels I saw a pony and cart coming the other way. So did the driver of the car in front of me. Reasonably enough said driver slowed. They slowed some more, and more, and eventually came to a stop alongside the pony and cart which was forced to also stop by the over-caution and peculiar road positioning of the car. Throughout this time I had been closing the gap but, having read that the situation wasn't going as expected, was unclipped and ready to come to a stop, which I did. The car, being now safely past the pony and cart, started up again. I clipped in and made to follow it.
Not very exciting. Except that the car immediately stopped again leaving me clipped in with no momentum. I knew I couldn't get unclipped. I leaned sideways onto the cart but, just as I did so it moved off so that the bit that I was intending to lean against was no longer there. I fell. I landed under the cart with the wheel against but not pressing down on my shoulder. The cart driver stopped. I was unhurt except for a scraped knee, the cart driver was certainly more shocked that I was. I cannot speak on the condition of the car driver as they cleared off without coming to investigate. My bike suffered a bent 'rear-mech' hanger. So no great tragedy as the cart driver realised the scenario and stopped before the wheels of the cart went over me. Heavy cart, big, had car wheels, used for hauling hay bales around - trust me on this.
And what a silly way to get badly hurt or worse it would have been. We can blame the car driver for the start-stop routine. We can blame me for clipping in too soon after the car seemed to be pulling away. Probably best to blame me, after all, I had a friend in Essex whose car got rear-ended at roundabouts twice in a year or so when he stopped to check that there was nothing coming from the right. There was nothing coming from the right on either occasion, just from behind - and both times with drivers who assumed he'd simply drive through the situation. I did the same - I assumed the behaviour of a fellow road user would be as I expected.
I do yet live. So, having failed to be terminally silly in Somerset I shall get to attempt it in the West Midlands at the weekend; this time by riding the 'Tour of the Black Country'. Cobbles, stones, gravel, sand...

David

Really Expensive Bottle Cage Nuts

Black Rat sportive 2016. The bottle cage on my down tube starts jumping about. I stop with a view to doing up the retaining bolts but, despite having the right Allen keys for the job, can achieve nothing as the bolts just spin. Fortunately I meet a mechanic at the first feed stop who sorts me out a temporary solution. "It won't last that long", he tells me.

Club run, 25th March 2017. The bottle cage on my down tube starts jumping about. I know better than to stop and attempt a road-side so fix so press on with a view to sorting it when I get back. The bolts just spin, as I guessed they would, so I phone Paul at Cheddar Cycles (good guy, knows stuff and a useful mechanic). Paul says to bring the bike in, he'll see what he can do. He can't make the bolts stay still but rigs up a potential solution - and doesn't charge me as it's not a proper answer. Thanks Paul.

Cheddar Cycles - a 'really useful' local shop

Club run, April 1st. The bottle cage on my down tube starts bouncing about. The decision is made. As the local bike makers in Bristol were going to want significant money for a proper repair it'll be time to go frame shopping. OK, I looked at a few 'new whole bike' solutions first - well you do, don't you? Nothing that I looked was going to match the rest of what I'd built onto the Scott frame over the years I'd had it (by the way - I was very happy with the Scott S40 alloy frame) so a new frame was to be the answer. A Radial Revere 1.1 carbon frame.

First few days of April - a sequence of emails fly between myself and Chris at Radial Cycles. Chris was really helpful. Advice was given (by him) and we agreed on the frame size I would buy. And I bought it. Massively reduced at £315. That's one seriously expensive set of retaining nuts! Of course, that's not the end of the expense though. I needed a new seat tube as the one I had was of too big a diameter to go in the new frame. I needed a new bottom bracket. The bottle cages from the old frame could only be used if I cut through the bolts on the down tube and I wasn't quite ready for that. Paul said he'd strip the components from my Scott frame and and build them onto the Radial for £50. Oh yes, and he was pretty sure he could get it done in under two days, which mattered. Thanks Paul - one hand duly snatched off. Plus parts; a new set of cables as the Radial has internal routing and the Scott didn't, and a new chain which needed replacing anyway. You may guess that the £315 has by now turned into more like £475. I make that almost £240 a nut, so does my wife...

And for the money I've got so much more of an upgrade than I dreamed I could. The first time I took the bike out was to check the setting up of the saddle position. It wasn't quite right but I managed a PB along the local flat bit without trying to go quickly. It was wind assisted. I stopped and tweaked the saddle. On the way back I came along a road that runs parallel to the first one, also flat. I didn't get a PB, I got a second, that one straight into the wind. I'm not sure if it was the effect of the lighter frame or the extra 1cm of length in the frame, but clearly it made me quicker on the flat. Further on I took on a small but steep climb; the Rhodyate, just under 300m in length at an average of 12%. I say 'took on' but I didn't really push that hard. I took 3 seconds off my previous best up there, which I put up just after getting back from climbing things in France last year. Strava position 95/1834. Not bad for a 53 year old who generally only gets out once a week. But not this weekend - time to put the bike in the car and drive to Tiverton.

Banwell Castle - the Rhodyate is the road running along the right curtain wall.

April 9th. Second time out on the bike with the new frame; the Exmoor Beauty sportive. A little matter of almost 70 miles and 1300m of ascent. At least I'd find out if I'd bought well. At least the

last 40km would be mostly downhill! And the David looked upon the bike with its new frame and concluded that it was good, very good. The distance had been suitably dispatched. The gradual climbs had been comfortably completed, the short hard ones had been fun. No one had overtaken me going significantly downhill all day. Granted PacTri Suzy had shot past me on the descent from 'The Ridge' on her way to a Strava ladies top 10 on that section but that wasn't on a significant drop, she was just going faster. Over that course I was very happy to complete with an average moving speed of, says Garmin, 15.3mph (iPhone Strava doesn't agree - they never do - but I feel that the Garmin record gave a better picture of where I know I was stopped for various reasons; mostly at the 'oh-so-slow feed station which was the one down point of an otherwise excellent sportive).

And today I got two PBs on descents, one from Bristol Airport down to Redhill and the other down Burrington Coombe. It's not the few seconds of being faster though that really delights me, it's the oh so much more secure feeling as I go round the corners. I remember getting the same feeling when I switched from the original wheels on the ScottS40 to a set of Campagnola Zondas. I'd expected to get a difference in cornering with those, it's why I'd bought them. I hadn't expected that a frame swap could improve cornering. Is it slightly reduced angular momentum due to the frame's weight (mass) difference? Is it due to the ability of the carbon to absorb road vibration? I don't know. I do know that about £475 has bought me a new experience of cycling which I just wasn't expecting. Frankly good. If I'd been buying the frame for the extra speed then the price down Burringtom Coombe would be about £120 per second chopped off - pretty good if you've got Sky's budget. I haven't. Now if any pro teams would like to buy some bottle cage nuts at £240 each...

First 'biggie'of the year

Route and section - not quite the intended Jack and Grace Cotton Audax

Last night I was told that potential partners for doing the Jack and Grace Cotton Sportive out of North Bristol had evaporated. Ah well, I thought; do the club ride instead. I even but a post on FB to say I'd be there - but it wouldn't post. Thanks FB!
So there I am this morning driving to Clevedon to the club ride thinking as to whether doing the Audax was actually a better idea. I could see from the motorway that it was raining in Clevedon. Decision made.
I got signed in just in time to have missed a wave of starters with 20 minutes to go before the next group left. I decided to go on my own - I'd doubtless be on my own for most of the day, I might as well start like that as well. Feeling good. Wind at back, flat road, 20+ mph and I started reeling people in. Going well. Arrived at the first check-point. Fortunately there were others there as, due to complete inexperience of audax rides, I had no idea what to do. I didn't have my glasses either so I couldn't read the writing on the card. Some friendly guy sorted me out with a pen and I wrote the last post time from the postbox which he said I should. He could have told me to write down which royal's crest was on the front. I'd have been no wiser, but fortunately audax folk aren't like that, it seems.
Lovely flattish roads heading north through south-west Gloucestershire. What a route! Pretty villages, open countryside, wind behind. More 'others' getting reeled in. Arrived in Berkley. Popped in the grocers to borrow a pen to write down the name of the cafe on the corner (friendly guy had also told me I needed to do this). Conversation in the grocers turned to how far; "60 miles! - I 'm jealous that you can" says a lady customer - who I then get to read the next instruction to me which says I have to stop at a 'sign in' in Epney after 48km. Good, good. Where in Epney? Nothing on the card; should have the course notes for that and of course, given the late decision to ride the audax, I hadn't got them.
Nice person number 4 helped me out. I reeled in a fellow audaxist and asked him if he knew where we were stopping. "Pub. In Epney. Anchor I think. You'll see the bikes outside". With that we parted. It was 'The Anchor'. There were cyclists. Signed in, washed the outside of my bidons off, as they were now carrying about the same weight as one of my cycling shoes in mud, and carried on. The route was now across the wind and therefore a bit slower. But not much - still going well.

The Anchor at Epney - with cyclists

Approaching a roundabout on the south west fringe of Gloucester I glanced down for directions. Blank screen. My Garmin had turned itself off. Oh yey! No route card and no Garmin. This just got harder, lots harder. It shouldn't have gone off - it wasn't short of charge. It wasn't wet. But it had. It did re-start and re-load the course but it never gives directions when this happens, just a trail of purple across the roads and when the roads get thin the line gets invisible. It rapidly went invisible. There resulted a trek around the recently built 'domestic zone' of any new town in Britain; which this time happened to be called Quedgley. Forwards and backwards. Exploratory. Lost. Eventually decide that the only course of action was to get on the A38 and head south with a view to turning off and hoping to re-hit the audax route further on.

Lost in Quedgley

It worked. south down the A38, east on a B road towards Stonehouse (always reminds me of the politician, John Stonehouse, though for the life of me I can't remember why I remember him). On a corner a minor road joined from the left and there were people emerging from it that I recognised as folk I'd briefly interacted with and then gone on past earlier in the day. Back in business then.
Now at this point you might think that I'd cycle with these folk with a view to being certain of the route. I meant to. I didn't work. For the first of a number of occasions from that point of the ride I found that I'd left them (and subsequently others) behind fairly quickly - but I had a strong purple line so I wasn't too worried. I certainly wasn't concerned enough.
It all went swimmingly well as far as the next sign in point - a farm shop cafe. You can see where it is on the section at the top of the blog - the spiky bit at 92km. Where I left the route in the final section I don't know. I was happy that I was following a purple line except that I got to a junction and had a choice or orange roads; not good. I hung around for a while to see if anyone would ride past; surely someone would - then I could just follow them. No one did. They wouldn't though would they. They were on the right route.
Nice person number 5, an elderly lady who lived at the house on the junction, was happy to direct me towards Aztec West (where I'd started from) though not entirely sure of the roads towards the end. It worked. All I needed was nice person number 6 to give me the final directions. Back. Arrived. Hooray. It's all closed! Bad! Arrives nice person number 7, one of the riders of the audax,who was happy to direct me to the signing off check-point, just about a mile away the other side of the M5.
Perhaps I will learn the lesson. The route was supposed to be 64 miles, I did 71. In Quedgley I must have taken a 'long cut' as I got to the farm shop cafe 4 km too late. From there it was supposed to be about 20 km, By the time I'd been to the last check-point and back again I did 32.  On the plus side I'd powered round the 71 miles I'd ended up doing with a very few cyclists going past me and then staying in front of me all day. Of course, they didn't get the chance at the end.
For the record there's rather less of Gloucestershire now than there was this morning. I brought quite a bit of it home attached to my bike, me, my helmet, bidons... My wife just emerged from the bathroom. She says that 'The next time I come home wearing Gloucestershire could I please spend longer rinsing down the bath". Seems fair.

Speaking a new language

This evening I went for a blast up Sa Colobra. Half an hour's seriously hard work. Legs know I've done it - though I think I could do it more intensively. Heart rate maintained at at least 85% threshold for over 20 minutes and over 95% for about 8. I never left the conservatory, of course.

Last week two new toys entered my life; a turbo trainer
Elite Volare review by Matt Williams

and a heart rate monitor...

Dangerous toys! Suddenly I find myself in 'training sessions' having measured my threshold heart rate and maintaining percentages of it because a youtube video clip tells me to do so. ...and it's fun.

I never was a fan of cycling in the dark, and when there's cold to add to it I'm not going to get motivated. Possibly; once or twice; but the last four years says no - not regularly.  So I invested (spent) my Christmas and birthday monies on the new toys so that I can cycle in the dark with the lights on, in the cold (if I choose), but without going anywhere. For ages I looked at turbo trainers as something I'd hate, just sitting there, peddling away, same scenery, bored. Wrong! The list should read; pushing myself to the point of dripping all over the towel under the bike, matching cadence and effort to a well thought out schedule (thanks GCN Cycling), watching the scenery go past - tonight Majorca - and absolutely intensively involved. For any body that wants to try the session - here's the link...
GCN Sa Colobra climb video

Mind you - this technology has issues. Saturday morning I was out on a club ride. There were only four of us as the weather had been forecast to be terrible, though it wasn't. It was windy. Jim hadn't got long and went home early. That left three. Coming back across Puxton Moor into the wind I was leading with the other two (I thought) tucked in behind me. It was hard work. I decided that, as I couldn't maintain any serious speed into the wind I would motivate some effort via the heart rate monitor. I found a rate that seemed to fit with decent effort (about 160 bpm) and pedalled at a rate to maintain it. It was windy remember - this rate managed to maintain only about 14mph! Approaching the left turn at the end of the moor I turned to my companions to express some joy that we'd soon be out of the wind. They weren't there. They weren't close. They weren't within the half mile that I could see back across the moor. At this point I was bad - sorry folks. I knew it was supposed to start raining around midday and the sky was getting dark with associated drips. I decided to push on for home. The new toy took over again - I deliberately maintained a heart rate of 160-170 back to Clevedon with the effect that I was back at the car, changed and driving away when the rain started properly. It also served to do the threshold heart rate test.

So what now? The handlebars on my bike are starting to look like a plane cockpit - basic computer, Garmin, now the heart rate monitor and, at this time of year, the lamp holder even if not the lamp. Even these have had to be arranged so that I can fit the 'difficulty changer' of the turbo trainer on as well for those evening sessions in the dark. MAMIL I have been for a while, now it seems we have to add MAMWD - pronounced as Welsh of course (Mamuud) and meaning 'middle aged man with devices'. If I'm going to speak this new language of heart rates, thresholds, turbo trainers and percentage maximum effort then I may as well add to it. On Thursday GCN tell me I'm in for a high intensity workout. I'm just off to check the dictionary of 'CycleTrainingSpeak' to see what that means.

DP

No through route

I reckon I need a cyclocross bike. 35 miles this morning; far from vast, but about half of them were off road. On my road bike. Poor bike!

The whole point was to seek out the local equivalent of the passage to India going west from Europe. That, as you may remember, lead to the discovery of America. Well, rediscovery. Again. How Columbus gets the credit for the discovery of an already populated country is a testament to the idea that the powerful write history. Our local equivalent would be the route from Wick St. Lawrence to Kingston Seymour. There's clearly a road missing through that area. At present the only route is a several mile detour via Congresbury and Yatton. Or is it? Close study of the OS1:25,000 map suggested that there was a possible route on a track. I'm not averse to tracks if they're in decent condition. One of my favourite rides of this year was the club Strada Bianche where we connected various bits of 'not road' together one Saturday morning, all punctuated by nice 'un-jolty' sections on road to make it feel like a reasonable road bike excursion. So, decent weather for the first occasion in three weekends - time to investigate...

"Sorry", says I, realising that the couple of ladies walking towards me were about to accost me for cycling along their private property. "Somebody told me there was a way for cycling through to Clevedon along here". This had the desired effect. The invader was now a poor lost cyclist. "Oh no, it's not this one. You need the route through where they're doing the building of the new sluice. Up that way". Promising...
Half a dozen climbed gates later I was the other side of River Yeo following what will clearly be a very cycle-able path once it's finished (and the gates are removed). Looking good. Right up to the point where I met the gate coated in barbed wire with some very nasty loose and tangly sharp stuff on the top. The folk at the farm that the path is going to go through are clearly putting off the advent of cyclists for as long as possible. Hopefully, in due course, they'll become more welcoming - it would be a great place to open a cafe!

As the map above shows (of that section of the ride), I didn't have any luck with any of the other investigations of that area either. This wasn't the way to America, India or, indeed, Kingston Seymour.

There's been another section that has been inviting investigation; getting from Kingston Seymour onto the coastal path that comes south from Clevedon. We included a short section of that when we did the Strada Bianche. I had hoped to investigate it after solving the north west passage from Wick St. Lawrence. In the circumstances the only solution was to go via Congresbury. Naturally, being in the mind to go 'off-roading', I checked out a short link from the Strawberry Line into Yatton. It worked; but boy was it muddy. So muddy that I failed to steer a corner and fell (well unintentionally dived) off into the ditch at the side. Yerrgh.

Every picture tells a story. This is the picture...

All the tracks that go off Ham Lane look, on the map, as though they have a chance of connecting onto a track that would be the continuation of the coast path from Clevedon. That one is a good one; a tarmac route that has a lumpy surface; tarmac but not a road, great for adventurous folk on road bikes. As the tracks go off Ham Lane they all look like they they could push through to the coast. None do. I had a great time doing easy grade cyclo-cross (avoiding the harder stuff as there would be no way that a club ride would take it on anyway) but no through route was discovered.

I had one more section to investigate. Avoiding Clevedon itself by discovering that Colehouse Lane really is a decent road, I headed back towards Kingston Seymour on the Yatton road. When Mike and I had done the original ride checking of the PacTri Strada Bianche we'd discovered a likely looking track going off in Northfield (north of Yatton at the Kingston Seymour turn) that could be an alternative to road cycling the B3133 back into town.

No good either. What might have been a track extension wasn't. There was a path, but nothing for road bikes. So, as I said in the title, no through route. Lots tried, all but one failed and that was hardly a rousing success. But hold on - I had a great time for two and a bit hours checking it all out, riding unlikely looking lanes that turned into passable tracks that then became impassable tracks so I turned round and tried the next one. Fun. How many of those impassable tracks would 'go' on a cyclo-cross bike as opposed to a road one with 23mm tyres? Expensive question. I suspect that part of the answer to the bigger question was that I chose to return home via the Strawberry Line from Yatton...

Dave