Back from my holiday...
I've just spent a week in North Devon (Croyde) for my annual surfing and biking holiday and had a rather good time.
Getting there from Portsmouth I take the A36 to Salisbury, then the A30 down to Exeter followed by the A377 up to Barnstaple which is a lovely bit of road.
An interesting thing happened on the way down: Somewhere on the A30 I noticed another bike behind me, but I lost them on some of the twisty bits after doing overtakes, but later I got held up in traffic in a village and noticed them coming up behind me again.
I set off once more, lose them, but then get stuck at traffic lights and a while after, they reappear...!
This goes on for a couple more times until I got stopped by some more lights and the rider filters up alongside me, flips up her visor and asks where I'm going, so I say I'm going to Exeter then Barnstaple and she says she's heading up to Taunton.
Then, surprisingly, she says "Awesome riding!" (I was reasonably happy with it, but I felt some bits were a bit ropey, however I'll accept the compliment...)
So we head down the A30 again until she turns off up to Taunton, but it was a nice bit of biking cameraderie :-)
Oh and later on in the week I rode the A39 from Barnstaple to Minehead via Lynton, Lynmouth and Porlock, a road that has more twisty bits than a very twisty thing, followed by a lovely ride back across Exmoor.
I also got to fly (one of) my kites for the first time in ages. Unfortunately the wind was too strong for the Revolution Kite, but I had lots of fun being dragged along the beach by my 3 metre Radsail Power Kite :-)
The surfing was fun too, for a lot of the holiday the waves weren't too big, but were breaking really cleanly which made life a lot easier and by the end of the week I was catching (and standing up) on most of the ones I took.
The only problem is that paddling out on the board puts quite a bit of strain on my lower back and I ended up having to a) take a Neurofen before I went out and b) put a couple of Paracetemol in the "key pocket" (which is on the inside of the right ankle of the wetsuit) so I could take them when it got too uncomfortable, meaning at least I didn't have to quit!
So all in all a really good time was had :-)
Getting there from Portsmouth I take the A36 to Salisbury, then the A30 down to Exeter followed by the A377 up to Barnstaple which is a lovely bit of road.
An interesting thing happened on the way down: Somewhere on the A30 I noticed another bike behind me, but I lost them on some of the twisty bits after doing overtakes, but later I got held up in traffic in a village and noticed them coming up behind me again.
I set off once more, lose them, but then get stuck at traffic lights and a while after, they reappear...!
This goes on for a couple more times until I got stopped by some more lights and the rider filters up alongside me, flips up her visor and asks where I'm going, so I say I'm going to Exeter then Barnstaple and she says she's heading up to Taunton.
Then, surprisingly, she says "Awesome riding!" (I was reasonably happy with it, but I felt some bits were a bit ropey, however I'll accept the compliment...)
So we head down the A30 again until she turns off up to Taunton, but it was a nice bit of biking cameraderie :-)
Oh and later on in the week I rode the A39 from Barnstaple to Minehead via Lynton, Lynmouth and Porlock, a road that has more twisty bits than a very twisty thing, followed by a lovely ride back across Exmoor.
I also got to fly (one of) my kites for the first time in ages. Unfortunately the wind was too strong for the Revolution Kite, but I had lots of fun being dragged along the beach by my 3 metre Radsail Power Kite :-)
The surfing was fun too, for a lot of the holiday the waves weren't too big, but were breaking really cleanly which made life a lot easier and by the end of the week I was catching (and standing up) on most of the ones I took.
The only problem is that paddling out on the board puts quite a bit of strain on my lower back and I ended up having to a) take a Neurofen before I went out and b) put a couple of Paracetemol in the "key pocket" (which is on the inside of the right ankle of the wetsuit) so I could take them when it got too uncomfortable, meaning at least I didn't have to quit!
So all in all a really good time was had :-)