We were up and ready to go by 9am, a quick chain clean and ping - there goes the gear cables! Nope not my arch nemesis, the left gear shifter, the right one leaving me with 3 gears. Excellent - today was going to be a long one. We called a bike shop who were busy but squeezed us in, they had enough time to fix the right cable, but not the left stiff shifter. I was happy with that! It was last minute plus it was 10.30 (1.5 hours behind schedule) before we got going and we had a lot of ground to cover.
The miles towards and though Cheddar Gorge were stunning. The trees on both sides meet, so you get a natural tunnel - my favourite thing second only to the sunlight on a mountain range ????. As soon as we saw the Cheddar Gorge sign we braved ourselves for a climb, but it did not come instead we had stunning downhills, on winding, quiet and smooth roads. A 16% downhill for what felt like a lifetime! It was a cyclists dream. It was with reluctance that I stopped to take pictures, but I couldn’t let the views pass me by!
The last 20 Miles seemed to take an age, we were moving but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. We stopped for a couple morale boosting sweets but quickly demolished 2 bags!! (The state of my hands aswell ????)