No kids (thanks to my lovely, wonderful, can’t thank you enough, especially as I know you’re reading this, folks).  No hubby who, thanks to nuclear power up North somewhere needing to be secure for some reason, works away from home during the week.  Just me, and my day off.  I should therefore have been a happy bunny this morning.  I wasn’t.  For lots of reasons that I won’t bore you with, and one that I will, as I have my second appointment with my new consultant tomorrow to tell her that the last thing we tried didn’t work, and find out what’s next.  Being entirely too good at ‘net research, I know most of the possible answers to that question, the pros and cons of many, and I’m not at all keen on any of them.  So…yes, not a happy bunny.

My massive grey cloud was matched by those outside, which seemed oddly fitting.  But it wasn’t cold, and the rain seemed to have passed with no more forecast until considerably later.  It was supposed to be a day I was riding…and having done the chores, which are considerably reduced when the house only has one person in it, I decided I would indeed be riding.  Sod it.  Staying at home wasn’t going to help cheer me up, not on a day when head space was required.  Nope, time to ride.  In fact time to ride up hills until I was tired enough not to have the energy to think any more.

Starting with the hoping to be 8th wonder of the world – Cheddar Gorge.  Which was delightfully full of grockles gazing skyward.  Ah well, it’s all good for the local economy right?  Less good for anyone trying to get anywhere, but then let’s not pretend that I was going to be going anywhere at speed anyway, so it’s all good really.  I’d have been marginally faster, but as I took my camera out for the obligatory photos, I dropped my pills on the road, and hey, priorities right?!  The ability to kill pain, should I need to, is way more important than a Strava segment.  Actually so are a great many things, but that’s another story.  It’s not, but you know what I mean.  Actually, I see the Cheddar Gorge segments have all gone AWOL again, which presumably means that some eejots have reported them as dangerous…again!  No fair – I like to know I was actually as bad as I thought I was at the time!

OK, that was one hill.  It wasn’t enough.  More hills were required.  I was making this route up on the fly you see.  As you know, I’m a big fan of downhills.  As my brain worked its way through the various permutations, this was important.  Because I like the downs enough to do go up whatever is necessary to get to the ones I like.  Which, in this case started by heading across the top of the occasionally wet, and windy, Mendips.  Where it wasn’t wet it clearly had been, and where it hadn’t it was going to be.  I was about to catch me a pair of rabbits when MaxiMe rang, a fact I ascertained by stopping to see who’d called my pocket.  I wouldn’t normally return calls – I don’t like talking to people – but hey, in his case I’ll make an exception.  So I stood in the layby, made broken conversation with the boy, and let them get away.  Guess where I was?

Onwards, having gotten really quite chilly standing around talking to him.  I headed through the village and out t’other side, heading eastwards all the time.  Time to find the next hill.  Now since I was already on the top of the world, the only way to do that was to go down.  Down Old Bristol Hill to be precise.  Which was a little hairy.  There was a sign warning of road chippings, so I had top dressing fear, as well as the usual wet gritty crap surface to deal with.  The chippings never materialised, the rabbits however hove into view again.  I really didn’t want to overtake them going downhill.  And, serendipitously if it can be called such, any risk of that was removed by some sort of insect life arriving at speed and taking up residence on my epiglotis.  I nearly coughed up a lung for all the wrong reasons.  By the time I’d regained what little sangfroid I’d ever had today, I didn’t catch up with them again until the bottom of the hill at the junction where they were nonchalantly taking a breather, as well as taking up half the road…  I exchanged the usual time appropriate salutation, ascertained it was clear, and went round them to turn left and go up New Bristol Hill, aka the Bristol Road, aka the A39.

There’s a thing in the good ole US of A where depressed or desperate suspects decide to let justice take its course, wave something suggestive in the direction of the relevant law enforcement agency, and get shot.  It’s called suicide by cop.  Well if I’d been so inclined, I could quite easily have committed suicide by motorist.   Ok, so I was not a shiny happy person this morning, but I still wasn’t that keen on shuffling off this mortal coil early!  In fact, since I decided to count, on four separate occasions I came an awful lot closer to meeting my maker than I want to.  And let’s not argue about that bit, it’s there for dramatic effect.  Just in case anyone is paying attention to whom this is relevant – if you’re driving a lorry and pull out to get past me, could you a) pull out a bit further and b) wait until ALL of your vehicle is past me before you pull back in again?  Or maybe wait a while until there’s a bit more space? Thanks, that’d be greatly appreciated.

So with my heart in my mouth (which would make it a tad hard to breathe if you’re me), and my fingers firmly crossed, I slowly and patiently fought my way up to the castle beyond the goblin city.  Sorry, I meant the aerial at the top of the hill ;).

And why did I put myself through this?  Well for starters it’s a good climb.  Tad steep at the bottom but average after that.  It goes on for a long time.  It’s nice and wide so should the passing traffic give a monkeys, there’s room for them to do pass safely.  The views are nice…ok, better on the way down than up though.  According to the sign at the top, warning those about to go down, it’s an 11% hill.  Not bad.  But to be honest, I really went up it so I could enjoy the descent all the way from there along and down the A39 to Chewton Mendip.  Oh yes.  It’s a lot harder to go past me when I’m doing c.40mph.  And it surely was fun 🙂

So that’s two hills done.  What now?  Well I’d chosen this way around because the stretch of the road past Litton is more downhill East to West than the other way round.  I could have done things differently…but this way was working out just fine if you ask me.  There I was, the wrong side of the Mendips, and unless you cheat and go along that horrible road along past Blagdon, you have to go up again at some point.  And that was the point today, right?  No point like the present then, which makes it time for a Harptree.  East Harptree this time.   Another long slow damp slog, albeit a much quieter one.  Done it before, will do it again, managed it fairly well today.  Long hills are the best, in my not so humble opinion.  Best of a bad bunch of course ;).

Oh look, the top of the Mendips again.  In the rain.  Nice.  Time to decide which descent to take to get home.  The idea of dodging grockles didn’t appeal.  I debated going down Burrington Combe, through Langford, and back through Sandford and finishing with Winscombe Hill.  But it did occur to me that that might be over-doing it, and I fancied being awake for at least part of the afternoon afterwards so…instead of heading down the Combe, I took the left turn and headed off towards Charterhouse instead.  Still in the rain.  Smashing.  However rain in the warm, with the wind mostly behind you, really isn’t entirely unpleasant.  It could almost be called refreshing.  Almost.  Of course it wasn’t making the roads any nicer, but unless I’m imagining it, which is entirely possibly, they’ve resurfaced that nasty stretch of road, and though it still goes up and down a bit, it was a lot more enjoyable than usual.  Apart from the usually very fast descent to Lillypool – that I took with due care and attention.  And noisy brakes – presumably full of wet road crap by now.

One final kick up, a restrained descent of Shipham Hill, another quick blast down the bypass that failed once again to set my segment alight, and I was back home.  Was I happier?  Well, maybe marginally.  I was soaked to the skin, a little more tired, with a once-white bike that now needs a good washing before the weekend.  But there are at least now a few more hills in the legs, and miles in the bank.  I’ll take that :).

Cycling time: 2:24 hrs.
Distance: 35.5 miles.
Avs: 14.7 mph.
ODO: 3193.9 miles.

If you’d like a laugh, having felt somewhat maligned by my description of the damsel in distress situation on the last ride, Robin has sent in this take on it. *grin*.