Cheddar Gorge

The next ride we decided to do was the climb of Cheddar Gorge in Somerset - a place that I had heard about before but had never been to.
Living near Southampton pretty much means that you have to travel a fair way to find any really good hill climbing, other than Old Winchester Hill and Beacon Hill which are both part of the South Downs and have testing accents, depending on which way you decide to tackle them.

Anyway, we parked up in Wells and set off towards Wookey Hole and the climb up to Ebbor Gorge, which to be honest, came as a bit off a shock as it was a tough introduction to ride but in actual fact it turned out to be good testing climb.

After taking a slight wrong turn - and me having that moment of "oh no how long before I tell her that we have to head back". Even worse, when we finally got back on track the first thing that we came across was another hill! - Did I forget to mention that Amanda doesn't actually like hills and she's supposed to be my training partner - Doh!

We eventully arrived at Cheddar to find masses of traffic and roadworks but once through we began the climb in good spirits (as the infamous book only rated it at 3/10), picking our way through tourists and past the enevitable shops selling all sorts of trinkets, the road started to get gradually steeper but you don't really notice it too much as you are simply in awe of the high jagged edges that surround you and create a truly surreal atmosphere - it does allow the wind to whip through though.
The only really hard bit of this climb is a sharp left hand corner at about 16% and this is where I remember the wind being at it's most unhelpful but once through this section of road it is a joy to cycle, although I'm not sure that this would be true in the height of the tourist season.
The ride ended up being around 50 miles long and and was broken up with a circuit of Chew Valley Lake - with a stop at the tea rooms of the same name (highly recommended).

No news on the Etape route at this point although rumours on forums were suggesting that the Alpe D'Huez looked to have a good chance of being included. It looked as though October 19th or 20th would be the day when I would find out.
The cycle climbs book had now found it's way into the bathroom and I as starting to look for the next climb while soaking my limbs from the last one (sad, I know). A few things were catching my eye - climbs I really liked the look off, Hardknott, Wrynose, Honister, Kirkstone and Newlands passes, and they were all in the Lake District. Hardknott and Wrynose particularly caught my eye as they were both rated 10/10 and having looked at plenty of photos and videos of them they looked extreme to say the least.....