My sister hatched an excellent plan for us to cycle on Saturday from Bristol (where she lives) to Portishead out at the Bristol channel. To meet up with her I took my bicycle on the train from Oxford to Bristol via Didcot. I had wanted to take my Pashley but bicycle storage on trains can be very variable so I took my road bicycle which is very light and easy to lift. This was a very good decision as there was not enough bicycle storage at all, luckily the platform conductor helped cyclists squeeze bicycles in. What I thought was very bad and I am going to make a proper complaint about is that the onboard train conductor 3 times made a sarcastic announcement over the tannoy saying the train was delayed by two minutes by the cyclists getting off at Bath, that seemed so unfair to blame them as any delay is the bad provision of storage not the poor cyclists. I really don’t like that the conductor was trying to create hostility to cyclists. I am so cross about it!
My sister met me at Bristol Temple Meads station and we cycled to her house to leave my stuff and pump our tyres. Then we set off on cycle route 41 and eventually joined cycle route 26. This route took us under the Clifton suspension bridge (the view if you are up on the bridge) and all along the Avon. It was a much rougher path than we were expecting. If it was a wetter day a mountain bike would be more suitable but on a lovely sunny day like we had it was fine even for us on lighter bicycles. It was a fun adventurous route.
We made it to Portishead! We had a nice lunch at The Royal Inn which has a panoramic view over the Severn. We explored the pebbly beach and looked at the boats in the marina.
We hadn’t brought bicycle lights so rather than cycle back again we cycled to Avonmouth train station and got the train back to Bristol.
Then back to Bristol and on to my sister’s house. It was a really good adventure and I would really like to try more of these cycle routes with my sister :)
