and winter came back….

After a false dawn of spring-like possibilities, winter has played with us and come back with a vengeance in the last 36 hours.  

Saturday’s highlight, after almost all of the 93 miles ridden out to the East of Cardiff, through Newport to Chepstow, then up into the Forest of Dean, and back, was a tailwind finish past the Cardiff dockside, and 10 minutes of sunshine breaking through the low cloud.  Having started with 40+ miles of headwind, it was scant reward but one I was grateful for nonetheless.  Altogether just over 1,000 metres vertical climbing – not bad as much of the route was dead flat.

Interesting in passing were the bridges, old and new, in Newport.  First, the Grade 1 listed transporter bridge over the River Usk (twin to the Middlesbrough landmark, and still in use) – it is the largest of the 8 remaining transporter bridges worldwide, the oldest in Britain, was opened in 1906, designed by a, hmm, Frenchman, and free to cyclists and £1 or thereabouts for cars.  

– Not exactly a high-speed option for crossing the river but at the time, a genuinely innovative design, at a place on the river where the low tide mud flats meant a ferry would be no use, and the wide shallow banks were unsuited to a traditional style bridge.  

And the new A48 bridge, half a mile upstream – far more efficient, permanently open, attractive in a curvy 90’s modernist kind of way, but still somewhat lacking in essential character.

 

A grey day in Newport became a greyer day in the Forest of Dean when, after a steady 7 mile haul uphill from Chepstow, I was well and truly into, and then in and out of, the cloud base by the time I reached St Briavals.  

Lots of grey, some green, and a crop of snowdrops and crocuses, plus a castle in the village centre, built in 1205 by King John, and used since then as variously a crossbow bolt factory, a prison, and now a YHA youth hostel, and a reminder that Offa’s Dyke, and the border between Wales and England, is within a mile:

 

The other highlight being a crowd of students cycling along on mountain bikes in the middle of nowhere dressed as all manner of superheroes, from Superman to Wonder Woman via Batman and the Incredible Hulk.  Sadly I didn’t get any pictures!

Sunday was a ride of 77 miles from Trowbridge to the Westbury White Horse on the top of the Salisbury Plain escarpment, then to Bradford on Avon, Melksham, Calne, Avebury and – sort of – back again.  1,380 metres of climbing all told.  Colder, windier, and just as grey as the day before.  Of the three white horses on the route, the best being the Westbury one – renovated in 2012, and allegedly the oldest of all the hillside white horses in Wiltshire:

And as I write this, it is sub-zero outside and I have cycled through snow flurries and even stronger headwinds to get home from work.  With things set to get worse for the next couple of days.  I am comforted by the fact that every mile in training is meant to be worth three on the actual event.  I hope so.  And I hope it’s going to be a damn sight warmer in France in June as well!