A look ahead to 2020 and the race's first visit to Cornwall
With next year’s Tour of Britain visiting Cornwall for the first time on its opening stage, we headed west to get a taste of what lies in store for the pros
It’s a perfect summer’s day when we meet local rider Jake Alderman of the Cornish Saint Piran cycling team at Watergate Bay on the county’s dramatic north coast. The waves that have made this area a surfing hotspot are nowhere to be seen, but the warm sunshine and gentle breeze are magic ingredients when it comes to going for a bike ride.
It’s all an extreme contrast from our previous visit back at Easter, when rain and 70mph winds saw the beach red-flagged and put paid to our original plan to check out the sort of riding that lies in wait for the Tour of Britain peloton in 2019.
The opening stage of the 2019 Tour of Britain will bring the race to Cornwall for the first time next year, and the riders will face a long haul from Penzance on the south-western coastline to Bodmin in the east near the Devon border. The winding route is expected to brush the north Cornwall coast near Newquay and Watergate Bay, and we’re in the area to get a taste of what might be in store.
The bay itself is stunning, with sharp cliffs rising in each direction from the beach’s soft sand. The roads out match those cliffs in both directions, with sharp drops and just as steep rises a regular feature of Cornwall’s northern coast road. Luckily for us, our route takes us rather more steadily away from the beach as we follow Tregurrian Hill up the valley.
Alderman is from Falmouth, and while he races in British Cycling’s Elite Road Series for Saint Piran, he knows the team will need to step up to be on the startline when the race comes to
town. “It’s the dream, though,” he tells us as we roll down and up past another idyllic beach at Mawgan Porth.
Our route takes us inland from here, and soon we are in rolling farmland where – no doubt – the clotted cream that professional cyclists should avoid, but the likes of us can’t wait to pile onto our scones later, is sourced.
Rolling is the key term, however, and it’s becoming clear that next year’s opener is going to be a brutal stage. Cornwall doesn’t really do flat – “It’s great for intervals, but it can be difficult when you need to do long, steady efforts,” Jake tells us. “I have to constantly watch my power meter.”
Though the road undulates, our route actually climbs steadily towards its high point near Belowda, from which we head across the busy A30 and into the Goss Moor National Nature Reserve. This sparsely populated open landscape offers the sort of scenery the Tour of Britain riders are likely to face as they race across Bodmin Moor towards the stage finish next year. Many will be familiar with similar topography after the race’s recent forays across Devon’s Dartmoor – but for us it’s a chance to take in unspoilt, isolated villages such as Enniscaven so close to Cornwall’s arterial road but seemingly so far from the beaten track.
With time at a premium, Goss Moor represents the turning point for our Cornish taster session, but the meat of the ride still lies ahead of us as we make our way back to the coast via some of the area’s quietest roads and steepest valleys. Once through the town of Indian Queens – a familiar name if you’ve tackled the A30 in summer as the ‘gateway’ to the north coast – we hit green, shaded singletrack roads. These might be too narrow for a race but their surprisingly good surface and low traffic volumes welcome most cyclists who aren’t being followed by a cavalcade of cars. Up to a point, they are welcoming, anyway, and then they dip sharply down, which, as all cyclists know, means they will soon start to point sharply upwards.
It’s been a short ride, and Jake has been kind enough to take things easy on me, but without enough recent miles in my legs there’s no escaping the fact that this is going to hurt. Initially we head down and up through the village of Trebudannon, and the climb is okay. Jake disappears into the distance, but we’re soon back together. I’d ridden this way once before, and knowing a steep climb was in store
Rolling is the key term, and it’s becoming clear that next year’s opener is going to be a brutal stage – Cornwall doesn’t really do f lat
somewhere, I was feeling quite pleased that it wasn’t as bad as I remembered.
Then we began descending again after Colan, through fern-lined, tree-covered lanes to the chocolate box collection of houses that sits near Porth reservoir where Jake disappears again. This is the climb I remembered, and just as with the last time I was here, I’m quickly down into my Specialized Tarmac Pro’s 36x32 lowest gear. It’s enough to keep me moving forward, just, but imagining a long day peppered with these sort of inclines – and knowing how comfortably next year’s peloton will take it all in its collective stride – is to understand the level of riders such as Jake and the WorldTour teams that will ride our national tour next year. To see them make short work of climbs we mere mortals have to wrestle with is to know that shaved legs and a (borrowed) £5,500 bike do not make you (and for that, read me) remotely ‘pro’.
After eventually joining Jake at the top, we head off again towards the coast. “That was a real stinger,” Jake kindly tells me, “I didn’t know that road at all.” Unfortunately, our chat doesn’t last long as we are soon climbing again, up a steady drag towards the clifftops at Porth, just up the road from the former fishing port turned surfing paradise and party central town of Newquay.
We might be in sight of Watergate Bay, where our ride will mercifully finish, if the road didn’t feature so many ups and downs. As I haul myself up the last drag to join photographer Joe and Jake above the bay I feel rewarded for my efforts. It’s a stunning view, though, and Joe rightly thinks it would make a great shot. “Can you
I’m quickly down to my Specialized Tarmac Pro’s 36x32 lowest gear – it’s enough to keep me moving forward, just
both ride down and come back up so we can get a shot across the bay?” he asks. Great. In fact, the part of the climb we ride a few times is not so bad, and to be here on a glorious summer’s day beats being pretty much anywhere else. And afterwards, we really do get to drop down the descent to lunch at the Beach Hut, which is every bit as idyllic as its name suggests.
The riders will be in for a tough, long and never flat start to next year’s Tour of Britain, and it should make for great viewing. If you come to Cornwall, bring your bike: at less than race pace, and with time to take in the county’s sights, there is stunning riding on roads that are quiet outside the school summer holidays and always challenging.