LEJOG Blog

We bade farewell to Trevone House and Gweek after a superb breakfast. Our landlady had washed and dried yesterday's clothes and we were away at around 9:15. We made for Falmouth, which was a journey of just under 10 miles, but it took us about one and a half hours.

We had a coffee while waiting for a St Mawes ferry and then joined the queue for the 11:15. Another cyclist, riding along the south coast, helped us with the struggle of carrying the tandem down the steps and onto the boat.

St Mawes was very picturesque, bathed in glorious sunshine and we cycled and then walked up the hill. This is an A-road but pretty quiet and we kept on it to Tregony. We then made a small mistake - following a sign to an off-piste pub and after a half-mile diversion, in which we didn't find it, we retraced our pedal-strokes and then climbed the hill into Tregony village.

The King's Arms served excellent beer and the cod and chips were also very tasty. We have learned that every time we leave a pub, we immediately have to climb a hill. We kept to the B-road until it joined the A390 and there didn't seem to be much traffic so we decided to stay on the main road into St Austell - there was an alternative through Sticker. This proved to be a good choice because on the 1 in 12 hill, we reached 40.3mph. However, we didn't fancy the upward section with traffic whizzing past us at 60 so we took to the pavement.

We found our way through St Austell and up to Carclaze. It seems to me that there comes a point in every hard ride when you have had enough and this was it. St Austell is simply surrounded by high hills and you have to climb whichever way you go unless you leave by sea. This was all very steep but we got on with it and eventually found ourselves out of the town and heading for Trethurgy and on to Luxulyan. The pub was open so we had a drink and then carried on up yet another hill.

I remarked to Janet that the worst thing about this riding was our inability to get into a rhythm. We were either grinding our way up hills at 4mph or hurtling down the other side at 25+. What I craved was a stretch of nice flat road and lo and behold, that was exactly what we got. NCN route 3, which we followed for some of its distance goes through something which resembles a mangrove swamp. It is a very narrow road occasionally with a lush ridge of turf growing along the middle and for four or five miles, we kept up a reasonably steady 10mph. This stretch was followed by a wonderful downhill where for several minutes, we just flew.

We then reached Fletcher's Bridge and lots more hills. After another three or four very steep miles, we travelled through Mount and with one more uphill I got bonk. We each had a cereal bar and cycled on to St Neot, arriving shortly after 7pm. We put our booked table back to 8pm, had the most wonderful high pressure shower and went to the pub for our tea.