GAB 2013 Day 1: April 21st - Weymouth to Dawlish

After an afternoon of touristy stuff with Carol and a night at the rather nice Pink House B&B I headed south riding a fully laiden Kate. Winding through the streets of Weymouth was a little tedious but eventually I'd worked my rather lumpy way out to the causeway to the Isle Of Portland. Working out which of the viciously upwards roads to take lead to the top of the island and The Verne prison... From here on it was a rather glorious ride along smaller and smaller roads down the west side of Portland and out to the lighthouse at Portland Bill... Where there was No Tea to be had.

The Bill of Portland

The Eastern side of the island was was similarly pleasant before the vicious down, the causeway and picking up the lumpy road west... This was generally not much worse than 'rolling' heading out to Abbotsbury where the promised 'evil' hill didn't appear and I assumed one of the climbs I'd already done was it... Then I found it.

View back along Chesil Beach from high on Abbotsbury Hill.

Bridport and onwards... And the turn 'down' to the beach at Lyme Regis. Which was a 1-in-5 UPWARDS... Cheats! Ok, then there was a long downhill too, but not really fair!

Kate enjoys an ice cream with 'the famous cobb' in the background

I zipped past several of the resort towns and was planning to ride into Exmouth and pick up the cycle route along the river into Exeter in order to visit the recommend 'Route 2' cafe at Topsham but time was getting on and I was feeling the call of the evening campsite. So I kept to the A-road into Exeter, crossed the Exe and followed it downstream to Starcross (home of the Brunell Atmospheric Railway) and a night at the excellent Hunter's Lodge campsite. 

Specs: 82 miles, 6387ft of climb, 10.6mph average speed.