Day Three - Epic, but not in a good way... until...

"Only day three...", is how my diary starts. The first two days were a bit... keen, shall we say. But, at least we took care of the the hills of Cornwall and Devon in two fell swoops.

It was an especially late and thrilling night of doing laundry in the bathroom sink, so once again our clothes weren't dry by the time we had to be on our way. Not ideal, so although the morning air was a bit chilly, I elected to leave the jacket packed and allow my clothes to dry out in the wind. It warmed up soon enough (although it never, ever got hot over the two weeks), and we actually had a bit of semi-decent weather until lunch time.

The more level terrain allowed us to keep a better pace, so we covered a good few miles before we dove into our lunch. Our route today took us through Bristol, which was the biggest city we would have to navigate through, then over the Severn Bridge (second longest bridge in the UK?) into Wales, then through the Wye Valley to our bed for the night.

Our route up until Bristol was fairly unremarkable, which helped us just put our heads down and peddle, but we went through some really, really nice towns just prior to arriving at Bristol. We also got onto a couple of fairly large thoroughfares for the first time, but everyone gave us enough space and we continued to make good time.

We needed it, because this is where it all started to go wrong.

Until now it had been difficult to make decent progress due to the constant hills, and the rain, also being fairly constant, just seemed to go along with it - terrain and weather equally challenging. Today it seemed a bit like the rain was just waiting to kick us while we were down. It started right when we started to be a bit challenged by the route we were to take. It kind of seems like a chicken and the egg thing (did the rain make the experience worse or did the experience make the rain seem worse?), but I'm pretty comfortable concluding that the scales tip in favor or the rain making the experience worse.

Anyway, it started to rain after maybe 25-30 miles into the day's ride, so by the time we were at Bristol we were a little damp, but not wet. We were both expecting Bristol to be a bit of an industrial port city - not all that nice to look at - but were pleasantly surprised to find that it's a rather beautiful city, all in all. We know people that have lived there and can see why they liked it so much. (I realize that the picture below shows giant bits of graffiti on a giant slab of rock, but it's valley and not the graffiti that is representative of the city)

We made it approximately half way through the city, up some seriously steep hills and through some rather nice parks, when we encountered out first difficulty. The nav had us heading through a green area, much like the River Valley in Edmonton in terms of location (but more of everything). I'll save you the details, suffice it to say, there was a little disagreement over which way we were to go. The nav wasn't terribly clear, as the route went through a large blank area on the map, which was the park. It wasn't clear if the route shown on the map was the route we appeared to be looking at behind a locked gate. After a drunk guy having a wander through the park didn't clear anything up for us, we decided to just head in the direction that appeared to take us towards the other side of Bristol, and see where we came out.

It was still raining and we were going from damp to properly wet in a hurry. Our frame of mind was rapidly deteriorating from neutral at best, to downright negative, but we still had a modicum of objectivity to notice how incredibly nice this park was. Like the River Valley in terms of forgetting you are in a large city centre, but like the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island in terms of how lush it is, only with slightly smaller trees and a paved footpath.

Once we emerged from the park, we found it a bit difficult to make sense of where we were and where we needed to go. After going around in circles for a bit, we discovered that the road we were meant to take was fully closed due to construction, so we had to find another way through Bristol. Sounds easy enough (especially with a nav device), but it was right in the middle of a part of the city where there weren't many direct routes going where we wanted to.

From leaving the park - already in a bad state - to finding our road closed only a few blocks away, ended up taking maybe half an hour (toilet stop, getting lost, going around in circles, etc). During that time the rain had started coming down in earnest, the temperature had dropped, our body temperature had dropped accordingly so we were shivering, we hadn't eaten enough so our energy level was low, and we were mentally ready to quit. Not so great, given that the rain wasn't going anywhere and we still had 40 miles to go. To say we were a bit grouchy would be an understatement. Myra isn't afraid to say that she was ready to find a train station, but like the other low points that we hit along the tour, only one of us was absolutely at our wits end, so this time I rallied the troops and after getting a hot cup of tea at a youth drop-in centre (?), we clipped in and peddled on, our waterlogged socks squishing and sloshing around in our waterlogged shoes with every peddle stroke.

Finding our original route again, we made for the Severn. Along the way I had started to get water mixed with sweat running into my eyes, which was blinding me and causing me to have to stop and attempt to dry myself without a single bit of dry anything. This would plague me for a few more times today, and on days to come. My feet were starting to complain about the wet socks and shoes, so I also had to stop a couple of times to ring out my socks. Damp socks feel fantastic compared to soaked socks.

If there was any nice landscape to see, we missed it. We could barely make out the Severn bridge until we were nearly on top of it. With the Severn crossed (it really is a very long bridge) we were into Wales for our first time, and it didn't take very long for us to partially forget our horrible day and take in the incredible scenery surrounding us.

Due to the rain, pictures are a bit scarce, so all I can say is that the Wye Valley, which runs north/south along the east of Wales, is stunning. I had thought it was further north than it was and wasn't expecting to come across it today at all, so when we rounded a corner and descended down a hill into lush hills shrouded mist, a river winding it's way through the bottom and the remains of Tintern Abbey (still well intact from 1131AD) staring up at us, we were a bit taken aback. It's worth a visit.

This successfully kept our spirits up long enough to see another 20 miles or so disappear, and we made pretty good time into Monmouth, absolutely determined to get the day over with. This was one of the most beautiful spots on our whole trip, but we unfortunately didn't really appreciate much of what was on display around as we were so focused on just being finished.

We finally arrived. Once again, our host for the night was very accommodating, a bit eccentric (not really, but a bit), and the place was great. She gave us directions into town and we had a better meal than the night before (Italian) and also a good deal earlier than the last two nights, though still a bit late. It felt good to walk into town, but man, do I hate flip flops. We got back, did our laundry routine, and collapsed in our separate, single beds. We felt like kids again.

Disclaimer: the following is for those with slightly more interest in the technical aspect of the trip - the bikes.

How were the bikes dealing with this? Great in terms of being relatively comfortable. I don't think I'll ever ride a road frame that isn't full carbon again. Poor in terms of being peddled for hour after hour in the pouring rain, for three days running. I had attempted to give the chains a bit of a wipe and re-grease between rides, but didn't have the energy or the time to do it properly. Myra's ended up looking much filthier overall, but mine was the one that couldn't be bothered to shift properly. I was starting to have to shift twice to go up one gear at a time and at other times it would suddenly shift on it's own when it felt the urge. Very frustrating when trying to keep a steady pace uphill with an extra 40lbs behind you. I was aware that my derailleur hanger was a bit bent, and perhaps that was getting worse, but the cable housing had also split at the back, so the cables weren't doing so well. I was also convinced that my bottom bracket was on it's way out.

The extrawheel was doing what it said it would. This thing is beautifully simple. Attaches to the bike in seconds, takes loads of weight, and keeps it off the bike on the flats (nothing you can do about the hills). As with any single wheel trailer, you have to pack it well or you'll be all over the place - especially if your bike weighs nothing. I got better at this straight away after the near miss on day one. It's difficult in strong cross winds, but as long as it's packed well, the bike remains amazingly maneuverable. The bits that attach to the supplied quick release are only stuck on with tension, but never come off, however the quick release has to be extremely tight to avoid slipping under power, which was an issue for me with my new massive legs (or maybe the quick release was just a bit loose...). The slippage had resulted in the finish on my former dropouts to come off, but that hardly matters now as we no longer have the bikes...