Day 9 - Hereford to Axbridge - Crossing the Rubicon!

Great night at the B&B at Lugwardine & another very nice breakfast set us up for the ride today. Unfortunately alans map told us we had hills from the off, today was our Alpine day - 8 hills worthy of a category - bloody hilly basically!

B&B - The Steppes, Lugwardine, Hereford

Todays stats........ Only 76 miles....... average speed 12.5mph......... hours in the saddle 6hrs ....... top speed 41.4mph! What does that tell you? There were a lot of long slow uphills and a few very quick downhills! It was fantastic scenery through the Herefordshire hills and the Wye Valley, we stopped for a short while in Monmouth and then headed on towards Chepstow via Tintern. The hill between Tintern & Chepstow was one of the longest & hardest but there were plenty more to come!

Soon after we'd started we found a beautiful field full of poppies, we stopped to take some photos & then started downhill....... a few minutes later I realised my sunglasses were not on my face.... I'd dropped them in the poppy field at the top of the hill. I was so annoyed I got back up the hill on anger and adrenelin & retrieved them. Not happy! Bristol didn't disappoint, lots more hills

Where are my sunglasses!

My sunglasses incident was soon overtaken by Steves. As we finished our lunch in Chepstow Alan looked on the floor & saw a sunglasses lens..... "Anyone lost a sunglasses lens?" We looked at Steve and he was wearing his sunglasses with one lens in & one out..... instead of just saying "me!" he put his finger up to his sunglasses and nearly poked his eye out! Should have gone to Specsavers!!!
After Chepstow we crossed over the old Severn Bridge and on to Bristol . We crossed the Clifton suspension Bridge which was an experience in itself. We then met up with Steve King, another mate of Alans who will be joining us for the next two days ride. After another up & down 15 miles we arrived in Axbridge, a lovely Georgian village & our pub for the night, The Oak House & very nice it is too!