I fell off twice within a couple of hours. Each time I just
got back on the bike. Unlike Philippe Gilbert, who I’m pleased to say was
relatively unhurt after his very dramatic tumble when he misjudged a bend and
went flying over a wall in the Pyrenees during the latest Tour de France, I
smacked the back of my head on the ground [OK, helmet and grass] and had a
twinge in my shoulder that lasted at least a day or two. I actually went over
the handlebars, no mean feat in itself on a fold-up bike and a trick I hadn’t
performed for fifty years since underestimating a slope on the Red Noses in New
Brighton.
We drifted [gingerly in my case] down the slope from the Stover
Trail into Bovey Tracey and came upon the splendid Café 3 Sixty, a specialist
watering hole for cyclists of all calibres, including those easily parted from
their steeds.
Bovey Tracey station building is now a heritage centre,
manned by two eager volunteers who were only too willing to show us around. The
twelve-mile Moretonhampstead branch from Newton Abbot opened as a broad-gauge
line in 1866, closing to passengers in 1959 and freight in 1964. Below
Heathfield it remains open for timber traffic only.
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