Hotwells

I followed the rest of the route 41: the Pill Path section. It follows the river Avon along wide, meandering lower reaches and on through the Avon gorge. A few sections were sufficiently muddy that I felt my rear wheel sliding out in the turns - enough to keep me on my toes!

A few cyclists passed in the opposite direction; this me very conscious of my wide panniers on this narrow strip of dirt hemmed in by hedges and the side of the gorge. One rider seems distressed and had apparently been spat on by a large group riding motor scooters along the cycleway. I encountered that group just before I passed under Brunel’s iconic Clifton suspension bridge, but fortunately received no spittle of my own.

Route 41 merges with route 33 which took me along the harbour side in Bristol passing the SS Great Britain on the opposite side. The bars and restaurants looked very tempting, but with bad more thunderstorms forecast and a long route ahead I felt I needed to press on to route 4.Read more