Planned as a 'short' day as I was meeting up with Carol in Bude for the drive home I was unsure how long to allow for the 20 mile ride. Cornwall had taught me that 20 miles could be an hour, it could be 10... Ok, so unlikely to be that long, but half of it could have been 2mph climbing...
And that is how the day began - with the steep and rough stone path away from the Tintagel Youth Hostel...
The rough climb back up from the Youth Hostel
YHA Tintagel - parting shot
After regaining tarmac I headed for Boscastle. There was no sign of an open cafe for breakfast. Heading away from town on a brisk climb a local helpfully called out "We call this Mile Hill...". Hmmm... felt like more than a mile to me. But there was a reward in the form of the excellent cafe at the Boscastle Farm Shop. But don't bother looking for it on StreetView or Google maps - it is THAT new - lucky me otherwise it would have been a long time until breakfast.
The cafe has a rule that it's a minimum of £10 spend to pay by card, so after a pot of excellent Cornish Tea and a hearty breakfast I just had to finish it off with a nice, strong coffee...
Refreshed the rest of the climb up to the A39 didn't seem too bad. With time enough before the lunchtime rendezvous I took NCN3 rather than the main road dash into Bude. I mean, if they're good enough to signpost it as a cycleroute it should be nicer riding than the A-road, right?
Well it started out well enough. There was the start of the Cornish Hedged Roads that people had warned me were typical of Cornwall but that I didn't encounter until 10 miles from Bude - almost the end of Cornwall... And then there was Millbrook... I cautiously edged Kate down the 30%, stopped on the apex to perform a manual turn for fear of rolling on the inside line which seemed somewhat steeper than the claim - and almost that in the camber too. The reward for the careful descent...?
The Vicious Descent into Millbrook (apologies for dodgy photoshop image merge - I couldn't stand far enough back to fit it in one shot!)
Yup - it goes back up at 30% on the other side!!!
Yes, it is that steep, both down and then back up...
And just in case, here's the StreetView link. My suspicion is that this is a "cycle route" because they consider it to be too steep to be a "scenic drive" route!
After that the ride up across Widemouth Bay and down into Bude was relatively easy!
Specs: 21 miles, 620m/2030ft of climb, 7.9mph average speed.
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