LEJOG Day 3 - Bodmin to Bude

Bodmin Moor ponies

The Engineer at work

Coastal Bude

5 main hills today, the last two diddy ones on the right were the worst!

First pub in the walk, okay, this looks fine

On the rooftop of Fawlty Towers

 It’s a shorter day today, only 36 miles, but (dun-dun-dun) it’s over Bodmin Moor!  That’s a 1500 foot climb.  Weather is supposed to be in the 80s / 26 so light gear and lots of water.  Wind is supposed to be less today, 4-5-6 mph, S swinging around to E in the afternoon.

The pedalling was good yesterday and we did surprisingly well with all those steep (for two people on a fully loaded tandem), sharp hills.  The gpx navigation was a godsend, saved us at least twice from making a serious error due to missed or non-existent National Cycle Network signage. Steve did bike maintenance last night to get rid of some creakiness that arose yesterday.

Aches and pains section - sore, but manageable.  Backsides are bruised from being in the saddle for so long while climbing.  Hands and arms are twingy, but not too bad - think we’re building those muscles pushing the bike uphills!  I have a pain in the ball of my foot that I need to ask Dr. Google about.  Taking paracetamol and ibuprofen today until those little niggles sort themselves out.  

The moor is supposed to be a big climb up and desolate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodmin_Moor. We’re packing plenty of food and refilling the water bottles as we can - we drank an amazing amount of water yesterday!

It ended up being as challenging as predicted, but not in the sections we expected!  We went further along the Camel Trail first thing, from Bodmin until it ended at the start of the climb - that was a lovely 8 miles through trees and countryside along the Camel River.  Then it was the climb, the Cornwall Gear (the smallest gear we have!) and the push to the top of Bodmin Moor.  We got to the top and thought woohoo, we’ve done it - nope, not even close!  The route view looked like just a couple small hills to go - they were steep, get off and push hills instead!  And then the back disc brake stopped working - rather important with 500 lbs of us and our gear careening downhill!  Luckily we have an engineer on board so that was sorted in 39 mins.  Last pull up to the B&B - ‘are we nearly there yet’ every few minute from the front!

Definitely a Fawlty Towers type of place.  We haven’t blown out the electricity yet, but that’s not from lack of trying.  Walked down into Bude and plonked ourselves at the first pub we found for a ‘scoop’ (a drink) and dinner.  No luck again finding a taxi back so walked, with some pulling and a bottle of wine ‘carrot’ from Steve.

Early, early bed tonight - unless the Belgian motorcyclists next door keep us awake!