Friday, 4th of July: The new month has started and I thought it would be a good idea to get my Imperial Century Challenge ride in at the first opportunity. The weather wasn't ideal being pretty windy again but it looked like staying mostly dry so I decided to go for it. I haven't ridden to Montgomery and Ludlow in a long time so that was the route I thought I'd go for.
I was out on the road a few minutes later than intended, using the Raleigh again and heading the most direct way out of town for Montford Bridge. The roads weren't too busy through Bicton, over the climb to Montford Bridge then Forton and Great Ness. So far, pretty similar to the last challenge ride but I turned at Pentre and headed past the Royal Hill to Melverley, went through Crew Green and Coedwy then plodded up the climb at Prince's Oak before going through Halfway House and taking my first snack stop of the day at Westbury.
Progress had been quite good so far and although it was already fairly windy it hadn't been too much of a bother. Heading from Westbury on the road to Chirbury that changed and I had to work against it. It made me think of a previous occasion I did this route in similar conditions but I did note that I wasn't as slow as I'd been on that occasion.
I'd had a bit of traffic to share the road with when I joined this section but it eased as I went along. Although it wasn't what you'd call busy, it picked up again between Chirbury and Montgomery as there is a closure on the road to Churchstoke. I got to Montgomery with less mileage showing on the clock than I'd expected. I decided to have a stop here early as there is a nice spot with a bench (and a bin to put my banana skin into). I was happy with how it was going so far and the legs were feeling fairly good again by the time I restarted.
Leaving Montgomery on the road to Bishop's Castle there is some good flowing downhill to start with, only spoiled by some less than considerate driving. Then after crossing the B4385 I picked up the tailwind and enjoyed some really great cruising speeds on a road that was much quieter. It doesn't stay flat for long unfortunately but the wind helped up the hills and the final climb at Lydham Manor wasn't too bad so I felt pretty good when I dropped down into Bishop's Castle. Again, the mileage was less than I was expecting at this point - it's a long time since I last rode this route in this direction and I started to worry that I'd misremembered what I'd done to add miles at the start on previous occasions.
Through Lydbury North to Kempton is relatively flat and when I had the wind at my back it was some great riding again. I got off the main road at Kempton, cutting the corner to get to Purslow. It gets a bit more undulating from here and there was one hill in particular I wasn't looking forward to, but actually didn't seem too bad when I got to it. The descent to Hopton Heath was great. With my concerns about having got the distance wrong I decided to head to Bucknell where a bench was found to have my lunch stop (but no bin so I had to take my rubbish with me). As well as giving some extra distance, coming to Bucknell meant that I'd have a section through Brampton Bryan that was really flat and with a direct tailwind. This was really fun and I wished it could have lasted longer. Adding more distance again I turned towards Adforton and Wigmore. Although the wind wasn't helping I got along well and was able to keep pace with another rider on a lighter bike for a little while until the hill into the village.
Having turned towards Pipe Aston I again had the wind behind me and also found that this road has had some work done since I was last here making it much more pleasant to ride, so I was able to ride enjoying the nice countryside rather than constantly dodging potholes. The work done carried on all the way to the climb through the Mortimer Forest - a big improvement as this stretch of road had been in a really bad state. That allowed me to wind my way up the biggest climb of the day fairly well. In my head, the car park for the forest is at the summit so it was a little bit of a downer to see how much further I had to go before reaching the real summit, but I did enjoy the fast sweeping descent down to Ludlow.
The added distance meant that I was confident about the century again. This gave me more flexibility about which roads to use on the way back and after heading out of Ludlow past Pearce Cycles I cut across to Stanton Lacey and took the road to Culmington. I knew this would be busier (and it was) but it meant I could cross Wenlock Edge via Seifton Batch, which I think is the easiest climb over the Edge in this direction. I could feel that I was running low on energy and eventually found a good gateway to pause in, have my last snack stop and also open the jelly babies.
The legs took a little while to get going after this stop and it was slow progress up the lane. Just before Westhope a vehicle came up behind me on a narrow bit of the lane - I pulled in to let them past in a driveway and got told to "Get off the F-ing road!" by the back seat passenger. Charming people.
The extra energy from my stop kicked in just in time for the steepest climb on this road and I wouldn't have needed to stop at the top if it wasn't for a stone in my shoe. I had some good flowing roads to Wall under Heywood and the wind was behind me again so I wasn't slow. It felt like it was helping me up the climb to Gretton too but this road goes pretty much due north so it shouldn't have been really.
The climb from Cardington to Folly Bank wasn't too bad and I enjoyed the descent but at the bottom of the hill I realised the distance would be slightly short if I went back the shortest way from here. On the plus side, by adding distance through Acton Burnell I'd be making the most of the wind direction again and it gave me a good boost, travelling at speeds I'd be fairly happy with on fresh legs. While cruising along at about 22 mph another rider overtook and made it look like I was stood still.
Having reached Cantlop I had to turn back into the wind finally and suddenly realised how strong it really was as I plodded down the hill to Condover. I had enough distance to take the shortest way from here but thought that with it approaching the rush hour on a Friday it might be better to go over Lyth Hill as the legs were feeling good enough to manage it. This proved to be a good decision as the A49 was pretty busy. For some reason there were two drivers parked across the junction at Hunger Hill - not sure why they thought that was a good idea.
The final climb was fine and I even felt good enough to take a little detour to round the mileage up at the end.
103.02 miles at 13 mph moving average from my speedometer and 5418 feet of climbing according to Strava. I'd been worried about how I'd manage this time with the extra climbing but this felt like the best century ride so far this year.
First snack stop of the day at Westbury.
Brockton.
Bunners in Montgomery - a locally famous old-fashioned ironmonger. Yes, they do serve fuel from the roadside.
The centre of Montgomery.
Just some of the very colourful buildings in Bishop's Castle.
Countryside between Purslow and Hopton Heath.
Brampton Bryan.
The classic view over Ludlow.
Looking towards Cardington from Gretton.
