Forum ride: 100 km loop from Crediton via Otterton, Exmouth, and Exeter. [DATE CHANGE] Saturday, Aug 19th, 2023

[ColinJ]

Fancy a flattish** metric century in Devon? I will be going down again soon and will be doing a 100 km ride from Crediton on May 20th. August 19th (Ride postponed from springtime) . You'd be welcome to join me.

I will update this post with details soon, but for now, here's a map of the route (loop to be ridden clockwise).

** By Devon standards! There are some hills but it is generally a pretty easy route.

 

[ColinJ]

I will do it solo anyway if I don't have company.

Cafe stop at Otterton Mill?

If @Fab Foodie turns out then he will probably force us to have a second stop at The Beer Engine, Sweetham...

 

[Fab Foodie]

Ooo....goes off to check diary....

I'll be back!

 

[Fab Foodie]

Permission has been granted....

 

[Fab Foodie]

I will do it solo anyway if I don't have company.

Cafe stop at Otterton Mill?

If @Fab Foodie turns out then he will probably force us to have a second stop at The Beer Engine, Sweetham...

3rd stop....the second at Double Locks surely? ;-)

 

[Jameshow]

I'm down a week later so no from me!

 

[Ian H]

I'm supposed to be riding the Welsh 600 that weekend, so I think it's a no from me.
Sorry.

 

[ColinJ]

Permission has been granted....

Great!

3rd stop....the second at Double Locks surely? ;-)

Or we could skip the Otterton stop and continue to the Double Locks, if you can wait that long for refuelling?

I'm down a week later so no from me!

I'm supposed to be riding the Welsh 600 that weekend, so I think it's a no from me.
Sorry.

Unfortunately, I don't have any flexibility in the timing of this visit. Hopefully, we can get together again on a future ride.

 

[ColinJ]

Er...

Hopefully, our route will not be under water on the 20th! I'll keep an eye on it. If necessary we can do a different route altogether.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Er...

View attachment 688994

Hopefully, our route will not be under water on the 20th! I'll keep an eye on it. If necessary we can do a different route altogether.

From todays ride - Bradford on Tone....

At least 2' deep at its worst and about 70m long

 

[ColinJ]

Yikes!

When I rode my proposed route on my previous visit, I couldn't help but notice a very small river (the Culm) with something worrying next to it...

I'm certainly not planning to cycle through a flood a couple of metres/yards deep!

 

[ColinJ]

@Fab Foodie, @Ian H and I discussed our preferences on the previous Devon ride. They are happier with traffic than I am. I like to get away from busier roads where possible so I search for quieter roads***, and good quality cycle paths such as those either side of the Exe.

We did the south side of the Exe last time and we will do the north side this time.

Some cycle paths definitely are more suited to BIG tyres than to slim road bike tyres. I confirmed that when I rode down the gravelly path towards Bovey Tracey last year and immediately got a puncture. I will be avoiding that kind of thing on road tyres in future!

I did like the high quality path from Budleigh Salterton to Exmouth though so I intend to use that again for this ride.

There is a cycle path from Otterton towards Budleigh Salterton. It used to be a very tiny Devon lane, as you can see from THIS 14 year old Street View footage. Now, things have changed (looking back towards Otterton)...

The Lower Otter Restoration Project is well under way ( to the left from that point of view). I have been along there twice and major works are in progress. It should be very nice when it is finished.

The end of this route is the same as my previous Devon forum ride route from where we cross the Exe just after Topsham.



*** Even if there is nothing wrong with the busier roads!

 

[Ian H]

Yikes!

When I rode my proposed route on my previous visit, I couldn't help but notice a very small river (the Culm) with something worrying next to it...

View attachment 689034

I'm certainly not planning to cycle through a flood a couple of metres/yards deep!

Those posts are everywhere. The only time to worry is when you can't see the lower numbers.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Those posts are everywhere. The only time to worry is when you can't see the lower numbers.

The 2' mark was covered in yesterday's flood.....

 

[Fab Foodie]

Update:
Wednesday's ride was cut short at Taunton due to what I thought was a sciatica-like back issue causing some severe leg pain.
Thursday was in agony and got diazipam to stop the spasms which is helping. Today went to the Osteopath. Seems the back twinging and the painful leg are not directly connected, so I seem to have some weird muscle damage caused by Wednesdays ride.

The other week I had removed and replaced my cleats to remove all the winter crud built-up under them but had done 45 miles prior to this weeks ride without incident. Who knows?

So - hoping for a quick recovery for next weekend :-/