BikeE In Bristol, England

Saturday 18^th October 2003- Bristol, England

The summer of 2003 has gone on and on, we’ve had the best Indian summer for a very long time so it seemed a shame not to go for another ride of some distance whilst we had the chance. The three of us, Chris & John on their DF’s and myself on my BikeE AT agreed to meet near Bristol Temple Meads train station for a ride around the Northern half of the Avon Cycleway, a circular ride of 82 miles in total, centred around Bristol.

I checked my bike over, set the pressure on the AD5 shock to 190psi (seems to be losing pressure down to 150psi after a ride…….) and added a skiing ‘bumbag’ to use as storage for essentials in addition to the ever present WhytoolE tray (http://hometown.aol.com/whytoole/WHYTOOLE.html) which had a few tools and spares inside.

We decided to stop to take a few photos, one of which is posted below. Below is a picture of me on the BikeE below the Clifton Suspension Bridge, probably Bristol’s greatest known landmark. It was designed and built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (he also built the SS Great Britain) plus many other great engineering works throughout Britain. The bridge is at a height of 245 feet above the high tide mark, and spans a distance of 702 feet, fantastic views from up there, but not today!

http://www.clifton-suspension-bridge.org.uk/

We moved on downstream and were now cycling along the Portway – the main A4 road into Bristol from the West, a road which is alongside the River Avon, really flat and wide with a shared cycle/footpath beside it. This road ran on due West for about 6 miles to a place called Shirehampton where we had decided to stop for a drink.

OK, now it confession time!

For the last 12 years or more the 3 of us have regularly gone out on a Friday evening ride to find pubs selling decent ale, hand pumped or gravity fed, not your gassy chemical multinational rubbish. This quest is done on our bikes to avoid any drink/driving problems and of course it gives us exercise (that’s what we tell our wives). In a city of over 400,000 people there are plenty of pubs, so we’ve hard a hard job trying to visit the ones we consider may serve a decent pint. Sometimes we’ve found great character pubs, other time places you rather not be seen dead in – this is called research, we just hope our wives appreciate and understand how we spend our hard earned cash! So after all this time we have of course visited many pubs, and keep returning to them to check on their continuing good standard, we now have on our ‘list’ almost 200 pubs!

Today is the day we are going to visit our 200^th pub, a place we had not been to since our teens, a few years ago, the pub is The Lamplighters (www.the-lamplighters.co.uk) beside the river at Shirehampton.

John – Roger – Chris

So we had a celebratory drink - just one, as we still had a long way to go, surveyed the maps and confirmed our route. This took about an hour so we left the pub about 1:15, a bit later than we thought and something that we were going to regret later………

Onward over hill, past the golf courses with the trees looking splendid in their autumn colours and past Blaise Hamlet, a collection of houses built in 1809, see

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/scripts/nthandbook.dll?ACTION=PROPERTY&PROPERTYID=357#

From here we made our way through the village of Hallen and onto Easter Compton which has an excellent pub – The Fox, for lunch. After just another 7 miles it was another hours stop; even though we had decided to take our time and enjoy the scenery, we were not really making as much progress as we should have been, particularly on unknown roads.

Lunch over, we made our way about 4 miles west to the location of The Second Severn Crossing which crosses the Severn Estuary to link England & Wales, passing over the second highest tidal rise & fall in the World, see picture below:-

This structure, as the name suggests, is the second bridge to cross the Severn Estuary and was only completed in 1996. It’s a beautiful structure, shame it cost almost £5 to cross it, and its actually owned by the French! If you look at the photo you may see the gantry slung below it, this operates on a rail so it can travel all the way across the bridge for maintenance purposes.

Why the Second Severn Crossing?

This is why - 4 miles upstream!

This bridge, The Severn Bridge, was opened by HM The Queen in 1966

It got so busy with the increase in traffic volumes, plus it was also very susceptible to side winds – something the Estuary is known for (shame the Designers never knew that fact), hence the building of the second bridge.

On our map we saw a track marked which ran between the two bridges, so to avoid the only alternative – a busy dual carriageway, we decided to go for the track, this is how it looked at the start

This is how it looked after half a mile! All grass and rough track, the two other guys had mountain style bikes rather more suited to this than the BikeE, shame I could never afford that RX model!

Still, it was too late to turn back now I’ll just have to hope that the 16 spoke front wheel will hold out…….

This part of the track was probably only about 3 miles, luckily it had been so dry we never got bogged down in what could have been salt marshes. After making our way rather precariously to below the original bridge we realised time was slipping away and as it was 4’o’clock, we only had about 1 ½ hrs of daylight left. As I had anticipated getting home by 5:30 I had only put a rear light on the bike, luckily Chris & John had their lights attached so at least we were visible as a group.

Looking back down the Estuary was a spectacular site with the Sun beginning to set over the SSC.……

Leaving the Estuary we headed inland and uphill, and by now we had all began to realise that we should have had a few more training sessions of some decent mileage before getting taken in by this nice weather. My legs were aching right at the top inner thigh location, and I should have realised the seat was too far back thus overstretching my legs to reach the pedals, not much – but enough to hurt. Also the bike was beginning to behave a little oddly, it seemed the suspension was going softer than ever before. At this point – 30 miles – I really should have stopped, adjusted the seat and either pumped the pressure back up on the shock or replaced it with WhyToolE’s emergency shock strut. I think I must have been just too tired to think about these options and it really made the rest of the journey home really tough.

We struggled on, trying to keep on the official route when we really should have made some drastic short cuts. By now it was dark (no more photo’s) so we made or way through the market town of Thornbury, up a really big hill we should have avoided , and on through a few more villages until we got to Iron Acton. Here we had a choice of three pubs, two of which we had been in previously, so we went into The Hungry Horse. Big mistake, just the sort of pub we try to avoid – all chemical beers and plastic food. We were so tired we couldn’t not be bothered to move and had a pint of their grotty beer before we went back on the road for the final leg of the journey, a mere 12 miles.

It had by now become quite dark out here in the depths of the countryside, so keeping in close formation we made our way to the safety of a nearby cycle route to keep away from the traffic. This was another good idea in theory, but as I had no front light it was a bit difficult to see any potholes, let alone the track. By now every bump I went over, the suspension ‘bottommed out’ causing the bike to momentarily brake before rebounding and leaping forward – a strange sensation. After approximately 8 miles John & I parted company with Chris who was now close to his home. The two of us carried on, the next 3 miles were back onto the road, much to the annoyance of a couple of motorists who gave me some abuse (rightly so……) for having no front light on.

Leaving John at his home I continued the last mile alone, finally getting home at 7:30. I had completed 49.78 miles, and was so tired I couldn’t even be bothered to ride around the block a few times to get the 50 miles up!

In my garage I checked the bike and found the pressure in the shock to be a mere 120psi, a new seal kit is now on its way from Cane Creek….

Next morning I checked the seat position, and moved it forward only about ¾ of an inch, so I now have put a small sticker on the seat and a corresponding sticker on the frame to ensure if the seat gets moved I can easily find the correct position.

So, lessons to be learnt?

Make sure you and your BikeE are BOTH fit for your journey!

Happy pedalling………

Roger Davidson