Aravis
Putrid Donut
- Location
- Gloucester
Yesterday's ride was a reversal of the ride up to Cheshire a couple of weeks ago. The girls were arriving back in Manchester about midday, so in return for driving up I get a ride back.
Until the previous afternoon I hadn't really thought it through properly, and I began to see the pitfalls. I take the bike out of the car and something is wrong or missing? There's no room for me and bike on the return. Anyway, Tesco in the centre of Crewe looked like a good place to part, leaving my wife a straightforward final run up to the airport, and once I was on the road, clearly with everything working as it should, the anxiety evaporated and I looked forward to the road ahead. It was chilly and autumnal to start with but the heavy early morning rain had gone. Two layers, arm warmers and gloves were just right.
The first village after leaving Crewe was Wybunbury, which I have no idea how to enunciate. Surely not Why Bunbury? After that it was Audlem and Market Drayton, familiar names from my days as a canal enthusiast. There are 27 locks in a few miles lifting the canal out of the Weaver valley. The only problematic bit of road I could see is a rather straight and fast-looking main road hill south of Market Drayton, easily avoided by taking the minor road past the golf course.
After that I'd picked a minor road route roughly tracking the canal, which if I'd fancied it would have taken me all the way to Wolverhampton passing only two more locks. But the roads were very nice - all too familiar to some, I'm sure, but these are lands largely unknown to me. The Wrekin and the Clee Hills were starting to get reassuringly bigger.
I was hoping for a photo opportunity at Forton Aqueduct, on the long-abandoned Newport branch of the Shropshire Union, but it seemed overwhelmed by vegetation and practically invisible. Better visited in another season, methinks. Onwards along more delightful lanes, then on a short section of the A41 I found myself passing RAF Cosford, a name I remember from watching indoor athetics on Grandstand in the 1970s.
After passing through Albrighton I started to pick up signs for Kinver, and began to feel I was reaching my home patch at last. The day's one "categorised" climb was Kinver Edge. It's very pretty but heavily wooded, obscuring the view from the road at least. It looks like a good place to visit in winter and look for groups of foraging birds.
I proceeded through Wolverley and the centre of Kidderminster, then stopped briefly at St Mary's Church, Stone, and it's most famous permanent resident, racing driver Peter Collins:
At least one of the cars looks to be of the right period!
Just a few hundred yards of the A449 were hellish, and I was glad I'd routed myself along the very narrow and undulating road via Lincomb to Holt Fleet. The section since Kinver had felt extremely arryhthmic and it was good to be on the more benign and stress-free roads on the quieter western side of the Severn. Apart for Worcester, that is, where I hit school turning out time - and received a few insulting comments.
For once, I took the noble Wainlode Hill route into Gloucester, and arrived about 45 minutes before I needed to head down to the cathedral for my youngest daughter's school prize giving. She'd done very well, and we'd been invited into the chapter house before the event for refreshments with the big-wigs. With the mayoral types in their fancy dress it felt as though we'd stumbled into a pantomine. I'd been hoping for vol-au-vents and the like, but the food on offer was all sweet stuff. I didn't want to undo all my good work so quickly, so remarkably, I passed.
Here's the route and profile - 111.32 miles:
Carefully keeping the maximum elevation under 500 feet means that the spike of Wainlode Hill looks a bit more significant than it usually does.
Until the previous afternoon I hadn't really thought it through properly, and I began to see the pitfalls. I take the bike out of the car and something is wrong or missing? There's no room for me and bike on the return. Anyway, Tesco in the centre of Crewe looked like a good place to part, leaving my wife a straightforward final run up to the airport, and once I was on the road, clearly with everything working as it should, the anxiety evaporated and I looked forward to the road ahead. It was chilly and autumnal to start with but the heavy early morning rain had gone. Two layers, arm warmers and gloves were just right.
The first village after leaving Crewe was Wybunbury, which I have no idea how to enunciate. Surely not Why Bunbury? After that it was Audlem and Market Drayton, familiar names from my days as a canal enthusiast. There are 27 locks in a few miles lifting the canal out of the Weaver valley. The only problematic bit of road I could see is a rather straight and fast-looking main road hill south of Market Drayton, easily avoided by taking the minor road past the golf course.
After that I'd picked a minor road route roughly tracking the canal, which if I'd fancied it would have taken me all the way to Wolverhampton passing only two more locks. But the roads were very nice - all too familiar to some, I'm sure, but these are lands largely unknown to me. The Wrekin and the Clee Hills were starting to get reassuringly bigger.
I was hoping for a photo opportunity at Forton Aqueduct, on the long-abandoned Newport branch of the Shropshire Union, but it seemed overwhelmed by vegetation and practically invisible. Better visited in another season, methinks. Onwards along more delightful lanes, then on a short section of the A41 I found myself passing RAF Cosford, a name I remember from watching indoor athetics on Grandstand in the 1970s.
After passing through Albrighton I started to pick up signs for Kinver, and began to feel I was reaching my home patch at last. The day's one "categorised" climb was Kinver Edge. It's very pretty but heavily wooded, obscuring the view from the road at least. It looks like a good place to visit in winter and look for groups of foraging birds.
I proceeded through Wolverley and the centre of Kidderminster, then stopped briefly at St Mary's Church, Stone, and it's most famous permanent resident, racing driver Peter Collins:
At least one of the cars looks to be of the right period!
Just a few hundred yards of the A449 were hellish, and I was glad I'd routed myself along the very narrow and undulating road via Lincomb to Holt Fleet. The section since Kinver had felt extremely arryhthmic and it was good to be on the more benign and stress-free roads on the quieter western side of the Severn. Apart for Worcester, that is, where I hit school turning out time - and received a few insulting comments.
For once, I took the noble Wainlode Hill route into Gloucester, and arrived about 45 minutes before I needed to head down to the cathedral for my youngest daughter's school prize giving. She'd done very well, and we'd been invited into the chapter house before the event for refreshments with the big-wigs. With the mayoral types in their fancy dress it felt as though we'd stumbled into a pantomine. I'd been hoping for vol-au-vents and the like, but the food on offer was all sweet stuff. I didn't want to undo all my good work so quickly, so remarkably, I passed.
Here's the route and profile - 111.32 miles:
Carefully keeping the maximum elevation under 500 feet means that the spike of Wainlode Hill looks a bit more significant than it usually does.
