Day 10 - Menheniot to Penryn
2022 08 10 Day 10
Menheniot to Penryn
Quick facts:
Weather: Sunny H28 L 16 humidity 84%
Departure: Sportsman Valley hotel in Menheniot
Destination: Glasney Rooms, University Campus, Penryn, Glasney Park Penryn Campus, Treliever Road,Falmouth, TR10 9FE
Planned route: 50.7 miles
Ascent: 4,085 ft
Decent: 3,950 ft
At an AS of 10 mph it should take 5 hours…
Actual stats from my computer:
45.6 miles vs 50.7
AS 8.28 mph
Elevation ascent: 2,480 ft vs 4,085 a difference of 1,605 feet
Descent : 4035 ft vs 3950 ft. A difference of 85 feet.
It took us 11 hours.
Well the very simple explanation I have is that my Garmin stops recording if my speed is very low i.e. less than about 5 kph or 3 mph. It seems I walked 5.1 miles (8.16 km) pushing a pretty heavily laden road bike. That walking was ONLY uphill for some reason. That would be the 1,605 feet of “disappeared” ascent. The descents it seems I was fast enough to keep my Garmin awake!
Actually the A390 route may have been a bit shorter so maybe I didn’t walk the full 8 km - that seems excessive! Those of you with Strava accounts can look at
Ralph’s Strava file on the cycling4charity site for the full
story. His stats are:
48.9 miles
AS 6.9 mph
Elevation climbed: 5,059
Elevation decended: 5,254
Maxclimb: 518 feet.
Ralph says his Wahoo doesn’t turn off no matter how slowly he is going.
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Another lovely sunrise, yoga, exercises, a full English breakfast served by Michael and by 8:15 we were heading to the bikes with a long and hilly day ahead. Apparently Ralph counted 40 hills in the 51 mile ride to come. I ate breakfast and didn’t count any. The profile alone was intimidating enough.
High hedges gave us morning shade but also blocked the views. I came around a corner and nearly ran into a pedigreed Shetland Pony. No picture. He scampered off. There was also a horse being led with the persuasion of a grain bucket. Bob (the gelding) and David (the gentleman) stopped and we had a lovely chat. He comes from a beer brewing family. It made my day to pat lovely Bob (who also has a long pedigree name of no consequence to this story). I passed along our personal card with the webside link and showed them the picture that would be in the blog.
More country lanes to peddle and walk up. I am glad I brought my good hiking shoes. They are getting good use. My clipped in cycling shoes would be more efficient when the going is good…. but we are on many hills over 17% and I walk those.
Our next “visitor” was Matthew from Wales doing LEJOG in the same direction we will be in a few days. He started from Wales, headed to Land’s End and is camping, or staying at lodgings or friends along the way. I forgot to ask him how many days he has in his plan. He was loaded down very efficiently and had strong young legs to get him there.
We crossed the main “A” road and briefly considered giving up on the farm lane route but the traffic was busy and there was literally no shoulder. We would be making a lot of motorists unhappy. (Stay tuned - we revisit this decision later).
Of course there are hazards in county lanes too where tractors with farm implements come around a corner and take up “their” road.
Everyone seems polite and everyone gets on their way.
More harvest and the odd solitary wind turbine which we find odd.
The little town of Lostwithiel is considered the Medieval Capital of Cornwall.
It has a bridge built in Norman times which had nine arches. Four are apparently under North Street now. This is as a result of the river changing its course over the centuries.
I went wading in the cool water while Ralph found a cafe for a latte and mackerel sandwich.
The river looks deserted in this shot but in fact many families lined the banks and lots of kids were playing in the shallow water. I filled up two big water guns for two small boys who were certainly going to have fun with those at the expense of some parents and siblings I’m sure.
I stopped at a beautiful Honesty Box selling bird houses and met Kate and her shepherd Ayla. They have been walking N to S in Cornwall. Kate has a connection to Haven House and knew about it.
She made an interesting comment when I said we were cycling around Britain. Something to the effect that I was correct in not saying England, because Cornwall is not considered by some to be part of England. I decided to look up the official version:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_status_of_Cornwall
By 3:30 it was obvious that if we continued walking up the steep hills associated with the rural farm routes, we wouldn’t get to Penryn for another day… or never! So we left our pastoral scenes behind and adjusted our route a bit to use the A390.
It seems the war ing signs on this highway are caution for 10% grades not 17%. We stopped much of our walking until we got closer to the university.
The scenery deteriorated considerably .
Ralph cheered when we saw a sign with directions for our residece compound at the University of Exeter or maybe of Penryn. They share the campus and facilities like residences.
There is no question that at 7:30 pm when we rolled into campus we were tired but it was also very satisfying to know that our predicted hardest day is behind us. The residence rooms were quite comfortable, entered at ground level and we kept our bikes in the rooms. A bonus!
Safe cycling
Lorraine