Day 81 - Musbury

I was up earlier than usual today, these lighter mornings playing havoc with my body clock, which offered me the opportunity to take that longer ride I spoke of on Saturday. Now that the Axminster road   has reopened following its collapse last week, I had in mind to extend my Colyford circuit to take in Musbury, the next village along.

Starting up hill and across to Harepath, I used the recently discovered lane out to the main road. Dropping down into Colyford, I amazingly broke my latest speed record by a further 3.8 mph, reaching 32.8 mph by the time I hit the bottom of the dip. It was going to be a good ride. Through Colyford and before the tram crossing, I turned into Colyton and headed out under what would have been the old railway bridge, before Beeching's destruction of the local rail network. The hill that followed rivals my Three Hills and even the 'daddy' of them all, Seaton Down Hill but once over the brow, the next 5 or so miles were wonderful. As they say, 'what goes up must come down' and in this case it certainly made for a pleasant ride through small hamlets and into Musbury itself.

Once out of Musbury, the road becomes busy, this being the main route between Axminster and Axmouth. I powered on my flashing taillight just to increase my visibility on these winding narrow lanes. Just before entering Axmouth, I passed over the new tarmac being the only evidence of the land slip which had earlier blocked this road for almost a week. The Axmouth estuary road is now a familiar and bumpy one, past the pill boxes, the thatched cottages, bird hides and entering Seaton at the marina.

Heading back inland along Route 2 / 33, I thought I'd share with you some of the obstacles placed in the way of cyclists along this so called cycle route. It is also interesting that in the three months I've been cycling this route, I've never seen another cyclist use it!

First obstacle is the set of parallel bars which may have some value to warn cyclists they are joining a main carriageway but these precede a minor lane leading to a sewage treatment works! The second is a narrow bridge and lane hardly wide enough to get a bike through. Luckily, I've never met anyone coming the other way, as when I last looked my bike had no reverse gear! Finally, within the last few weeks, Devon County Council have as good as blocked the entry to the cycle route with a metal bared gate with the only purpose of displaying a giant no tipping sign as this is not a lane which goes anywhere! Also, why do this when there's a perfectly good wall a few feet to the right which would have done just as good a job?

OK .. rant over, Sustrans take note!

Overall this was one of my best morning rides of the year. The weather was kind, the legs held out and the scenery was delightful, I also achieved three new PBs: a new top speed of 32.8 mph, a new distance record of 11.74 miles and a 10 mile record of 47m:51s which is a 3m:28s improvement on my Day 77 circuit last week.

Stats: 11.74 mi (PB), 59m 31s, Avg 11.8 mph, Max 32.8 mph (PB), 660 kcal