Day 2 – 6th April 2007
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 around 9.15. We made for Falmouth, which was a journey of just under 10 miles, but it took us about 1½ hours.
We had a coffee whilst waiting for the St. Mawes ferry and then joined the queue for the 11.15. Another cyclist, whose plan was to ride along the south coast, helped us carry the tandem down the steps to the boat.
St. Mawes is very picturesque, bathed in glorious sunshine, and we cycled, and then walked, up the steep hill. This is an A road, but pretty quiet, and we kept on it to Tregony. We then made a small mistake, following asign 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 excellemt beer and the cod & 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 B3287 until it joined the A390 and there wasn’t a lot of traffic about so we decided to stay on the main road into St. Austell – there was a minor road alternative through Sticker. This proved to be a good choice because on the 1 in 12 we achieved 40.3mph. However, we didn’t fancy the uphill section with traffic whizzing past at 60, so we took to the pavement.
We found our way through St. Austell and into Carclaze. It seems to me that there comes a point in every hard ride that you have had enough, and this was it. St. Austell is surrounded by steep hills and you have a climb whichever way you go, unless you go by sea. We got on with it and eventually found ourselves outside the town and heading through Trethurgy and then on to Luxulyan. The pub was open so we had a drink and then climbed yet another hill.
I remarked to Jan that the worst thing about this riding was our inability to get into a rhythm. We were either grinding our way up hills at about 4mph or hurtling down the other side at speeds in excess of 25mph. What I craved was a stretch of nice, flat road, and suddenly, that was what we got! NCN route 3, which we followed for a while, goes through a flattish, marshy area with stunted woodland that reminded me of a mangrove swamp. It was a very narrow road with a lush ridge of turf growing along the centre, and for 4 or 5 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 Fletchersbridge, and lots more climbing. After another 3 or 4 very steep miles we travelled through Mount, and with one more uphill I suffered from the dreaded bonk, and we had to dismount. We each had a cereal bar and struggled into St. Neot shortly after 7pm. We put our booked table back to 8pm, had the most wonderful high-pressure shower and went to the pub for tea.