Route to ride: Cornish Cream
What a way to celebrate my 60th birthday, riding 350 miles through traffic jams on the M6, M5 and A38 from Stoke-on-Trent to the village of Bugle near St Austell in sunny Cornwall. But relax, that’s not the day ride I am about describe...
The plan was to ride down to Bugle, stay with our friends Ginge and Treacle, who would show us a decent Cornish ride taking in St Ives, Land’s End and/or Lizard Point before backtracking to Newquay and staying with more friends, then riding back home.
The day seemed to split nicely into three or four sections of about an hour, covering around 40 miles in each one. Naturally, this being the county of Cornwall, the sun was shining as we took the A391 towards Bodmin.
After three miles or so we joined the dual carriageway A30 towards Redruth and stayed with it for about 40 miles before taking the A3074 for St Ives.
As we approached the town the sun lit up what looked like a typical pretty little seaside resort. It was indeed so pretty that Ginge and I were quite happy to sit outside a café on the harbour drinking coffee and soaking up the scenery while Treacle and RP, our beloved pillions, went to the shops.
As it turned out we had time for two coffees and an ice cream before the girls came back wanting dinner. St Ives, as well as being a haven for artists over the decades, apparently has some excellent (and time-consuming) shops too.
Due to this unexpected delay we were now well behind schedule, so Land’s End was dropped from the plan and Ginge led us towards Lizard Point, which is further south than Land’s End anyway. Following signs for Penzance and then Redruth, we joined the A394, which took us about 10 miles before we took the A3083 signposted The Lizard.
We were now so far behind schedule (I blame the boutiques of St Ives) that we didn’t have time to stop for long, so we found a suitable place to pull up and gaze in awe at the cliffs and sea, promising to come back another day.
It was time to head north for the very good reason that there’s only sea beyond Lizard Point, and the A3083 led us back to the A394. We turned east, following signs for Falmouth, which morphed into those for Truro when the road joined the A39 after about six miles.
Ten miles on, signs for Bodmin and Newquay began to appear, so I knew we were on the right path. Another 10 miles via the A3076 and onto the A3058, and the signs soon started to mention beaches, as well as Newquay, so everything looked good.
We should have known that we’d got to Newquay when we started to see surfers wandering around aimlessly. Luckily, we managed to avoid all of them.
During our day we covered about 150 miles in glorious sunshine and scenery. Some of the landscape was fantastic and the opportunities to stop and stare were endless. We crossed the bottom corner of Cornwall in a somewhat random manner, using main roads a lot of the time – if you wanted to take slower, more scenic routes there are plenty to choose from.
But the main roads didn’t matter, because we were in the company of someone who has lived here for many years. Ginge was able to take us for diversions off the beaten track to ride through quiet unspoilt countryside and quaint villages full of thatched cottages, rejoining the main road further down. In fact, reproducing every detail of that route would take more space than I have here, even if I could remember it all.
The important thing is that wherever you find yourself you are never far from a signpost that will get you back to a main road with signs for recognisable places. Cornwall is long but thin, so you’re never that far from one of the main roads.
If you don’t have the advantage of a guide with local knowledge, you could just set the sat nav to avoid major routes and see where that gets you.
Either way, it’s well worth making the effort as the South West’s geography makes it the ideal spot for some local adventuring.