Tour of Britain: Cheddar Gorge-ous

Fans in the Gorge

So tired, but so happy. Well worth it as a day out. Yesterday I went to the Tour of Britain as it passed through Cheddar Gorge. It was a fairly social trip, riding along with two from Bristol on the way in (hope they got back OK – one bike broke crossing the orchard at Sandford, but I showed them Cheddar Cycle Store) and one from Milton on the way back.

When I got there, I rode up the Gorge until I had to stop (or else fall off) and it was still packed with fans. It was a good half-hour before the race would pass by, but already almost every flattish piece of land by the road had either a spectator or a bicycle on it. I watched twitter for race news, posted an update @mjray, then put the phone away as the green-fronted police bikes came through just ahead of the racers. I tried videoing the race, but it’s only the second outing for the handlebarcam and I seem to have deleted the recording before hooking it up to the laptop. Thankfully, the itv4 coverage (repeated 13:00) is pretty good. (My back is on TV! Ahem.)

Now, today (Saturday) I will be mostly doing the work scheduled for Friday, but it was still worth it. Go along if you get the chance: Suffolk and Norfolk today, Westminster tomorrow. I suggested it to @enterprisehub’s #coopsweekend because the Rabobank team are doing well.

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2 Responses to Tour of Britain: Cheddar Gorge-ous

niq says:

2011-09-17 at 08:50

Heh.

Many years ago I rode most Sundays with the Bath CTC. Cheddar Gorge was somewhere we made efforts to avoid, because riding up such a heavily-trafficked hill and breathing the fumes wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good day out.

I guess they must’ve closed it to the regular polluters?
mjr says:

2011-09-17 at 09:09

Actually, it was only closed when the race was actually passing (from the green-fronted police bikes until the broom wagon) but you’d need to be a special sort of crazy to ignore all the signs, the police, the traffic cones, the near-Critical-Mass levels of bicycles and still drive up it yesterday lunchtime. Mostly it was White Van Mans and a few cars blindly following satnavs, but bicycles outnumbered motors by 20-to-1 or more and there was almost no overtaking (even bike-overtaking-bike was tricky), so the motors weren’t working hard and most weren’t putting out many fumes as far as I could smell.

I think I can guess how much fun it usually isn’t. If I want to go up to Charterhouse, I’d go up through Shipham because it’s much quieter and also avoids dropping down to Cheddar village before starting the climb.