LOCAL HERO
Inspired by Boris Johnson’s controversial seven-mile ride from Number 10, we embark on a similar ride in the city of Bristol
The inspiration for the ride’s theme came from an unusual place: Boris Johnson
When the first coronavirus lockdown struck Britain almost a year ago, I found myself, as Features Editor of Cycling Plus, in the unfortunate, or perhaps deserved, situation of having to scramble around for one of these Big Ride pieces to go into the following issue, because I had absolutely nothing in reserve.
As you may recall, we were only allowed to leave our houses once a day for a short period, let alone photograph some far-flung British bike ride, so like every other cyclist who had one, I jumped onto my turbo and improvised. The resultant seven hour, 142km ride through the virtual world of Zwift that I wrote up for the magazine hurt plenty, and I wouldn’t sit comfortably for days after so long sat on a rigid static bike that refused to yield. Sitting was something I would stuggle with at home in the subsequent days but which did alleviate the threat of police punishment, given there was no temptation to sit down in my local park. Those were the days…
I ended the article, which you can read on our website ( cyclingplus.com/articles/homediscomforts), with a line that worked hard to justify spending all that time on an indoor bike – that having used up a whole Sunday with the ride we were “suddenly a day closer to the end” of lockdown. A very glass-half-full way of thinking, reading it back now, given how events have progressed – or not – in the last 12 months.
Olympic endeavour
The inspiration for the ride’s theme came from an unusual place: Boris Johnson. In January the Prime Minister was involved in what was, depending on opinion, either a damaging breach of the rules on exercise that he himself had created or much ado about nothing, when he was spotted cycling in the Olympic Park, seven miles from Number 10. In doing so, some suggested he’d travelled too far from the seat of power at a time of crisis; for others, not far enough.
That the rules at the time – which in England were that “you should not travel outside your local area” – were so vague meant that nobody could really decide whether Johnson was right or wrong, and caused some to worry that the bad headlines would result in tighter rules on exercise. What did ‘local’ actually mean? Policing minister Kit Malthouse put up a spirited defence of his boss on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, saying that “if you can get there under your
own steam and you are not interacting with somebody... then that seems perfectly reasonable to me.”
Local meant different things to different people, both in terms of what exercise you were doing and how accomplished you were at doing it. A seven-mile walk from your house – and 14mile round trip – would take as long as it takes us cyclists to ride a century. My feeling is that by riding alone, and riding self-sufficiently, I’m doing nobody any harm and doing myself a lot of good. But for the ride today, I’d be sticking very close to home, so much so that were I to have an unfixable mechanical, I’d be near enough to walk it.
Just what would a ride kept strictly within the boundaries of seven miles from my flat offer me? 20 miles gave me places like the historic cathedral city of Wells and Wotton-under-Edge, which sits within the always challenging lumpy lanes of the Cotswolds and where I might end up on long summer days out. Fifteen miles would allow me my year-round bread-and-butter of the likes of Bath and the pleasant coastal town of Clevedon. But seven? Seven miles is lunch-hour territory, a speedy out-and-back to get my eyes away from the laptop. Seven miles in every direction, however, well that’s a different story.
With restrictions allowing us to exercise with one other person photographer Joe Branston would be joining me on his bike. He was forced to lug his heavy camera equipment on his back, which was something he didn’t notice through the largely freewheeling opening descent down to Clifton Suspension Bridge on the edge of the city. The magnificent 19th century icon of Bristol stands 100 metres above the Avon Gorge and draws tourists from around the world into its orbit, to gaze both at and from. It is and always has been a toll bridge, with motor vehicles paying a quid to cross, which goes into the upkeep pot for a structure that retains around 90 per cent of the original ironwork that it had on its opening in 1864. Cyclists go free, a measure that has saved me several hundred pounds in the years I’ve lived here. Walkers also go free, and because of virus restrictions, they currently traverse the bridge on a narrow path in a one-way direction, leading to an awkward socially distanced conga that tests to breaking point the widely held opinion that the British are good at queuing.
Green, green grass of home
The bridge is swiftly followed by a second Bristol icon, the Ashton Court Estate, a massive 850 acres of wood and grass land and home to many of Bristol’s outdoor enthusiasts – mountain bikers, golfers, walkers and roadies - and it’s a gift to those who live here, however they take
Seven miles is lunch hour territory, an outand-back to get my eyes away from the laptop
their exercise. Being so close to the city centre, Ashton Court is key to what many of its 467,000 residents love about living here – a compact, selfcontained city that’s surrounded in all directions by countryside.
Providence Lane – which figured in the final 10km of the Bristol stage of the 2018 Tour of Britain – was the first threat of the day, a severe 9.2 per cent gradient at just over half a mile that’s at its sharpest right at the bottom as you make the right-hand turn into it. Without traffic and some focussed cornering, you can carry your momentum and neutralise its harshest effects. We had no such fortune.
Bitter pill
The rough back lanes to Pill on the western edge of the River Avon were strewn with all manner of puncture-baiting debris and contributed to my flat tyre on the edge of the village. Having dropped heavy hints to Joe that with this ride we were heading onto some muddy tow paths and he should probably bring his gravel bike, the irony wasn’t lost on either of us that it would be me, on the 42mm tyres, and not him, on the skinny road rubber, who would suffer the day’s only flat. A thorn was the culprit and short of the tweezers required to extricate the tyre from it, Joe went far beyond the call of duty and used his teeth. This was not a scenario that came up in the risk assessment required in the time of Covid, though one that I’ve always personally avoided, pandemic or not.
The subsequent four-mile path along the River Avon is a traffic-free, picturesque route in and out of the city, and one that grows in stature the closer you get to Clifton Suspension Bridge, which you eventually pass under.
We carried along the Avon, before crossing it and cutting through the residential area of Southville and its trendy North Street, complete with an enormous mural, painted in 2019 by Bristol artist Jody Thomas, of Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg on the side of the Tobacco Factory, a hub of south Bristol that is home to a theatre, a cafe and market. For a time that year, Thunberg had the painting as her Instagram profile pic.
Bristol has strong credentials as a green city, driven by its people – comparethemarket.com research in 2019 found the city to be the UK’s top for the number of eco-conscious Google searches, while Strava data in the same year revealed Bristol to have the most bike commuters in the country per capita, with 28.9 people per thousand getting to work by bike. That said, many will attest to riding a lot here in spite of the city rather than because of it, with a lack of
The rough back lanes to Pill were strewn with all manner of puncturebaiting debris
segregated bike lanes, steep hills and an antipathy towards cyclists in the UK, which the city is hardly immune from.
From Southville, through Bedminster, you don’t have to ride for long to reach Dundry Hill, the highest point of Bristol (223m), which forms a natural point for the southern boundary of the city. It’s wise to avoid the busier main route to the top of the hill; instead take the longer, less steep way up through the sleepy village of Dundry, home to some wonderful views of the bustling city down below.
Something to chew on
The summit signals the beginning of arguably the best and most peaceful country roads to ride in the immediate proximity of Bristol, starting with superb views overlooking the village of Chew Magna below, passing through the lovely Compton Dando before arriving in Saltford. The bike path there allows travel to Bath (four miles left) or Bristol (10 miles right). The Bristol and Bath Railway Path unites these two historic cities with almost a single strip of tarmac. Usually it provides a gentle launching pad to a tough ride in far-flung hills, but today it offered a gentle wind down for a ride that was kept very much local. Well, that was our interpretation anyway…