The hills! The hills!

My trip has finally started.  Last night said goodbye to Jo at the doorstep, tripped down the stairs to the pavement (my excuse is the bike is now very heavy with all the gear) and set off from Putney to Paddington Station.  Well, I tried to, but on my first pedal stroke the chain came off – not a good start as Jo was wetting herself with laughter!

I took the overnight sleeper to Penzance.  When I woke up, the blind was down in the sleeper cabin, so I opened it with trepidation – would it be pouring with rain, was this going to be a miserable and wet start to my trip?

No!  It was sunny and blue skies. Relief…

I finally got to Penzance just before 8am – the sleeper train is very good, a really nice way to travel.

Off to Land’s End to start the trip proper.  It was pretty windswept except for a lone cyclist who was about to start the same trip but with a different route.

Finally it was a relief to get going.  There’s been lost of planning and even more thinking about this, but the feeling that I was at last cycling was really good.  I returned through Penzance by the Jubilee open air swimming pool…

…. And past St Michael’s Mount where the sea was an almost tropical greeny-blue…

Then a coach load of (what I thought) were German tourists arrived, so I asked one of them to take my pic.

... at the time I wondered why he was aiming the camera at the floor, but who was I to ask.  Anyway, to express my gratitude I said 'danke' to which he looked a bit puzzled.  Clearly not a German tourist then!

Until it was time for a mid-morning pitstop.  When in Rome etc …

By now the roads were pretty much deserted, the sun was shining and I was very happy. 

Except for the hills.  They are short, sharp, steep hills.  Every time it’s like going in a car from 1^st gear up a hill, to 6^th down the hill, with nothing in between.  My bike has two chainrings at the front and lots of gears at the back, and most hills were lowest gear at the front, lowest gear at the back to go up, and highest gear all round going down.  I tried to stay relaxed and not get to tense, but it is hard when you’re on a 15% incline doing 3-5mph!  Because I am on back roads, I didn’t feel confident to freewheel really fast going down the hills as you never know what is coming, so all that work going up is paid off with me riding the brakes going down slowly too!

Finally I got to the first ferry of the day, the King Harry Ferry which has been crossing this river since 1888.  I must say the ferry looked a lot more modern than that.  Thank goodness it had a bicycle pump on it as I forgot to pump up my tires before I left, and they were a bit low.

The views of the river from the ferry were great – this is what England in the summer is supposed to be about!

By around 1pm I was getting pretty hungry and concerned that I was in a pretty remote pace.  I was so happy to stumble upon a country pub which had a cookery school so was assured of a good lunch – fantastic!

By lunch I’d covered about two-thirds of my day’s mileage so was feeling pretty confident.  Unfortunately the Cornish hills had more in store for me.  Every mile from 2pm – 4pm was either a steep hill up, or a steep hill down.  Eventually I got to 2½ miles outside of Fowey, where I was finishing for the day, then I encountered the steepest of the lot.  Half way up, I thought enough is enough and got off for a rest, and took this picture by the side of the road.  

Finally, Fowey.  What a lovely place - it really reminds me of Salcombe.  I’m not sure why the Greenpeace ship was moored there!

It was great weather, so only 10 mins to find my B&B on Fore Street.  Except, after an hour of looking, I realise there are two Fore Streets in Fowey, separated by a river.  Therefore time for ferry number two of the day…

… and top crash out in the B&B on this road.

It has been a really tough day – tougher than I thought, because of the hills.  I can do the mileage, I had heard about the hills, but experiencing them is something else.

Here is a summary of my ride today...

Tomorrow is more hills!  And the plan is to get to Moretonhampstead.