Day 4 - Street to Monmouth

Day 4 was 69 miles and nearly 4,000 feet of climbing but it felt like a rest day, with a long and beautiful stretch at the end along the River Wye with some rollers through the gorgeous countryside that inspired Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” which (if you were an English major), you would know is one of the most influential English poems from the Romantic period, published in 1798 as an entry in the Lyrical Ballads collection, by Wordsworth and Coleridge.

I say “rest day” despite a wicked climb early on (the Brits would call it “cheeky”), with grades in the mid-teens for some long stretches. Pro tip (or I should say amateur tip): If you have a 32 chainring and 32 gear on the rear, and you’re slogging up a 12-14% grade, every revolution of the pedals equals about a foot of cllimbing, so if you have, say, 300 feet left and you’re about to give up, you just tell yourself “Just 300 revolutions left, I got this!” and you put your head down and concentrate on spinning the pedals. Mind you, this means you miss the stunning landscape which is why you’re here in the first place, but, hey, you made it up the climb!

We left from Street in the Somerset Levels, passed through Wells and Bristol, crossed the Severn Bridge over the Bristol Channel into Wales, had a Brew Stop (again, that means tea) at Tintern Abbey, then enjoyed the last dozen or so miles along the Wye Valley to the town of Monmouth.

Shoemaker Clarks was founded in 1825 across the street from our hotel in Street, and still has its headquarters there

Heading north from Street

Me spoiling a nice photo of the Wells Cathedral

The town of Bristol

View from the Severn Bridge, heading into Wales. Strong winds and rain started right after this shot, halfway over the bridge.I thought I was going to be blown over the rail. Welcome to Wales, indeed! Rain stopped right when we got to the bottom of the bridge.

Tintern Abbey. It was already a ruin when Wordsworth wrote his poem.