CYCLING

Bikepacking for Bristolians

Emma Kingston takes us on an all-terrain cycling adventure around the Mendips. Prepare for feral goats, award-winning pies and some quality riding you might not be expecting so close to the M5

Of course Emma Kingston –an adventuring mountain biker, writer, teacher and self-confessed map geek who has ridden, walked, climbed and camped in the South West for over 20 years –lives in Bristol, the UK’s first designated ‘cycling city’. She took up ‘bikepacking’ –a combination of all-terrain, multi-day cycling and lightweight, selfsupported backpacking –when she realised it meant that she could stay out and ride her bike for even longer, explore interesting places off route and eat an outrageous amount of ice cream.

Having travelled extensively in search of ever more flowing singletrack, her knowledge of the West Country is enviable. Now she’s written her first book gathering all her experience together and resulting in 20 mountain bike adventures across English destinations including the Lake District, Exmoor, Northumberland and the Jurassic Coast as well as her home turf. Each route evokes the freedom of hiking off the beaten path and includes the information needed to help plan a ride, points of interest, food and accommodation options in addition to fine photography and overview mapping. Downloadable GPX files of the routes are also available, plus practical advice for both well-wheeled bikepackers and those who want to try it for the first time. Here she shares her Mendip Hills and Weston-super-Mare route along with all the accompanying insider tips.

Mendip Hills and Weston-super-Mare

The Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty rises abruptly from the flat wetlands of the Somerset Levels and forms a long limestone ridge running from Bleadon in the west to Chewton Mendip in the east. Its undulating grassy plateau is punctuated by dramatic gorges and rocky outcrops that offer a spectacular vantage point for an exposed bivvy. Outwardly, the hillforts, henges and barrows reveal a prehistoric ritual landscape, while beneath the hills the soluble limestone has resulted in a complex karst landscape of sinkholes, underground river systems and caves. Farming still plays a key role in the region’s economy and a bikepacking trip here wouldn’t be complete without a visit to some of the independent dairies, farm shops, orchards and breweries in the area.

This route is very much a route of two halves. The first half explores the quiet lanes and gravel tracks to the west towards Weston-super-Mare, the original British seaside resort complete with sandcastle competitions, donkey rides and ice creams on the Grand Pier. There is also the option of some beach riding along the hardpacked sand of Weston Bay and Brean. The second half heads east over the Mendip Hills to pay a visit to the world-famous Cheddar Gorge and link up some of the area’s best cross-county riding on the way – from the technical singletrack under Beacon Batch to the narrow, exposed trails around Wavering Down. Prepare yourself for feral goats, award-winning pies and some quality riding you might not be expecting so close to the M5.

Dinner high above the M5

The route

It’s just after sunrise. The hillside is quiet except for the background roar of the gas stove. A kettle balances somewhat precariously on top of it and a telltale wisp of steam is starting to escape. Down below, a low-lying mist has settled over the wetlands – the Mendip Hills an archipelago rising above a white sea. The Somerset Levels are under there somewhere, a patchwork landscape scored with the horizontal and vertical lines of field edges, waterways and trees.

The Mendip Hills and surrounding Somerset Levels have proved an irresistible draw for humans for thousands of years. Prehistoric people built a complex system of elevated wooden trackways across the low-lying and marshy wetlands such as the Sweet Track – one of the area’s oldest existing tracks, built around 6,000 years ago. During the medieval period, most of the Levels was owned by Glastonbury Abbey and the monks were largely responsible for the network of drainage ditches known as ‘rhynes’. Up on the hills, the Romans had begun to extract lead in large quantities from the hills only a few years after arriving in Britain. Look out for telltale patches of uneven, undulating grass known locally as ‘gruffy’ ground.

Nowadays, the area is popular with walkers, rock climbers, cavers and cyclists who gravitate to its most well-known landmark and the birthplace of the original Cheddar cheese – Cheddar Gorge. At over 100 metres deep and 4.8 kilometres long, it is England’s largest gorge and makes for a thrilling road ride between its vertical limestone walls. There is even the option of climbing up to join a bridleway running right along the edge of the eastern cliffs. Down below, the Cheddar Yeo River flows through a huge underground ➲

river system, passing through some spectacular caverns in the process, including Gough’s Cave, home to Britain’s oldest complete skeleton, known as the Cheddar Man. Ironically, like all humans living across Europe 10,000 years ago, he would have been lactose intolerant.

Before reaching the Mendip Hills proper, the route briefly joins the Strawberry Line, a popular cycleway which follows the line of the old Cheddar Valley Railway that once ran from Yatton through to Cheddar and Wells, before heading west to the coast. The cycleway gets its name from the sheer volume of locally grown strawberries that thrived in the sheltered fields and which the trains used to carry to markets around the country.

Brean Down headland is an outlier, a continuation of the main limestone ridge, and it forms a natural pier jutting out into the Bristol Channel. Leaving Weston-super-Mare, the route uses the newly opened Brean Down Way, which crosses the River Axe over the Environment Agency’s sluices, now open to the public thanks to an agreement negotiated by North Somerset Council and the charitable group Greenways and Cycleroutes. There is the option to ride on Brean Beach if the tide is out, before the old military road takes you right out to the tip of the headland. There are abandoned fortifications to discover, fantastically curly-horned goats and views out to the islands of Flat Holm, Steep Holm and over to South Wales.

Back east, the route joins the West Mendip Way over to Compton Bishop. After the easy riding of the Somerset Levels, the riding on the Mendip Hills changes up a gear and it’s a prolonged yet satisfying climb up under Crook Peak. The new permissive bridleway contours around Wavering Down on a narrow, wonderfully positioned trail with Glastonbury Tor visible in the distance. One section is on a serious camber, another navigates polished bedrock while yet another whips around gorse bushes in a series of tight twisting turns.

At Cheddar Gorge, the route cuts diagonally above Cheddar and through Draycott Sleights Nature Reserve to reach the main grassy plateau. Once up, there is a brief detour to Townsend – home to the Priddy Good Farm Shop’s award-winning pies – before a straight ribbon of singletrack leads from the wireless station up to Beacon Batch and the highest point on the Mendips. A superb stretch of trail skirts the hillside above Goatchurch Cavern which is surprisingly technical in places, while a little further on, Rowberrow Warren has more singletrack to explore just off-route. Its waymarked trails have been developed by Ride Mendips, a charity established by a group of passionate local mountain bikers. Back on the Strawberry Line, the route passes right by Thatcher’s Cider farm, mill and orchards on the outskirts of Sandford. They run guided tours throughout the week, usually ending with the chance to sample some of their famous Somerset cider. Yatton railway station is only a few flat, easy kilometres away to the north as the trail passes through the flat Levels and leaves the Mendip Hills behind.

Gravel cruising on the Strawberry Line

Navigation

The Strawberry Line is part of the National Cycle Network and is well signed. Also, the trail around Wavering Down is a new permissive bridleway and has clear wooden signposts.

When to ride

Other than the well-surfaced Strawberry Line and the Brean Down Way, trails in the Mendip Hills are predominantly grass-based. Ride here when it’s dry to experience the trails at their best.

Warnings

The route briefly joins the busy A370 to reach Bleadon Hill. Beach riding can be great fun but check tide times before attempting it, pay attention to warning signs about sinking sand and mud and remember to do a thorough post-ride bike clean. Bristol Airport and the M5 are nearby and can be fairly noisy depending on wind direction.

Water

Most of the water on the Mendips is underground due to the permeability of the limestone. However, there are regular places to fill up bottles in pubs, farm shops and cafes along the way.

Food and drink

• Brean Down Cafe (National Trust); 01278 751 897 • Bleadon Cafe; 01934 814 339 • The Almshouse Tea Shop, Axbridge; 01934 733 720 • The Original Cheddar Cheese Company, Cheddar; 01934 741 985 • Priddy Good Farm Shop, Priddy; 01749 870 171

Accommodation

• Batch Campsite, Churchill; 01934 852 466 • Mendip Camp, Shipham; 01934 251 783 • Petruth Paddocks Camping, Cheddar; 01934 257 055 • YHA Cheddar; 03453 719 730 • Extract adapted from Bikepacking England, £20, Vertebrate Publishing; keeprollingmtbblog.wordpress.com

Birnbeck Pier, Weston-super-Mare