9 - Shrewsbury to Monmouth

Stats for the day:
Distance: 150.2km (93.3 miles)
Elevation: 1876m
Saddle time: 6:49 hrs
Total time: 9:53 hrs

Average 
Speed: 22.0 km/hr
Heart rate: 104 bpm
Cadence: 73 rpm

Maximum
Speed: 61.2 km/hr
Heart rate: 156 bpm








Elevation profile

What a fabulous day. The last couple of days, although not bad, in retrospect were a little bit of trying to get to the end of the day. Somewhat inexplicably today we both felt strong and even added a little 4 mile bonus at the end to go to Symonds Yat viewpoint. 

Starting the day in freshly laundered clothes thanks to the lovely Annette we headed out of Shrewsbury & soon saw a number of cyclists out for a Sunday morning blast. One local club of around 8 had been passing us up some hills, or rather, one very long hill, & were all quite friendly, as they gathered at the top we carried on by, but a few minutes later they came pelting past with a cry of "us again". This time we tagged along for the ride & managed to stay on the back of the peleton for about 5 miles cruising mostly downhill at almost 30mph. I was dropped first & Sean kindly waited for me to catch up. 

Clun Castle

Sign on the other side of the ford - a little late

We stopped for a little walk up to Clun castle, by which time the sun was really beating down. Leaving Clun we had to cross a ford. Well, I say had to, one of us took the little footbridge while Sean decided it didn't look to deep. The most unfortunate thing was that I wasn't quick enough with my camera to capture his fall almost immediately after entering. He had to get up quickly to catch the contents of his handlebar bag which started to float down the river. Undeterred he went back for a second attempt, and this time made it about three quarters of the way across before coming a cropper; most importantly this one was recorded in HD video.





looking into Wales

Within two hours we'd already climbed yesterday's cumulative altitude, but in the sunshine we powered through to Hereford and onto Monmouth.  The upside of all the climbing were some wonderful views, in particular a hillside road (think movie style mountainside pass on a smaller scale) with trees lining the  edge & a spectacular view across into Wales. 



Closer to the finish than the start

From Monmouth we were rewarded with another big climb upto Coleford, with a bonus section due to some erroneous GPS guidance that wanted us to take a path only suitable for mountain bikes. We dropped our bags at the B&B and jumped back on the bikes for a couple more miles down to Symonds Yat Rock. This was particularly badly timed as first rain of the day hit us and we took shelter waiting for it to pass, which it duly did. This actually worked in our favour as the was a huge rainbow from the viewpoint, which, on a good day, has a view across 5 counties. 

View from Symonds Yat

We finished a great day at the pub 2 doors down, which unfortunately didn't serve food on a Sunday (this is the only way I know know which day it is). No problem, we got a Chinese takeaway from across  the road & were given plates at the pub with a couple of local ales, a game of pool & darts - multi disciplined athletes.