Well, today's stage is going to be a struggle. A flat TT around a market town in middle England. We begin in Pershore and this is where we will finish so let us leave this for the end. The riders will follow a short loop anti-clockwise (it's definitely anti-clockwise, I bothered to check this time!) towards Great Comberton. Lying at the partly on the steep northern slope and partly on the foot of Bredon Hill, some of the riders may fear that we will see actual gradients today. Fear not, brave followers, our route will make a sharp turn north towards Little Comberton, skirting round the base of "Britain's Ventoux" a nickname that has never been given to Bredon Hill and I literally made up as I was typing this. Great Comberton has been around since BV (before Valverde) and was mentioned in the Doomsday Book (just like Valverde's first pro win...).
Bredon Hill has clearly been of strategic value throughout the history of England and Britain. Roman earthworks, an Iron Age fort and the remains of a Medieval castle can be found on the hill (our route avoids this castle for fear of reminding the riders of their night spent in Newcastle) and Worcestershire's (pronounced wu-ster-sher for those who struggle with English place names) largest ever hoard of Roman artefacts was found here, including over 4,000 roman coins from the reigns of 16 different Emperors. After Brexit this hoard will probably be enough to buy Worcestershire and you can rename it to something more easily understood... Bredon Hill has the strange distinction of being named three times. What's this nonsense I hear no-one ask..? The name is composed of words meaning hill in three different languages, Bre has Celtic origins, Don, is old English and Hill is.. well... it's hill. Bredon Hill has been immortalised in a vast array of art work, from paintings and poems to songs and stories.
From Great Comberton we next arrive at Little Comberton, a small village containing some lovely thatched cottages which will make for a picturesque route and provide something for commentators to describe while no-one pays any attention to the racing.
Our first clue as to how riders are fairly comes in Bricklehampton. Another small village, Bricklehampton is possibly the longest one-word, isogrammic place name in the English-speaking world. If any of our well-travelled brethren know of a longer one then please do pipe up. This is where our time check will happen, possibly lifting us from the gentle slumber so associated with watching time trials.
From here we return to Pershore, crossing back across the Avon and the gruelling 14.5km is over. Pershore is famous for its Abbey, which has recieved patronage form a long list of Mercian Kings. Those of you with a penchant for this will recognise names like Coenwulf and Æthelred of Mercia, the last of the great Merican Kings to rule over the Anglo-Saxons before the Kings of Wessex defeated them and ulitimately became the first real Kings of the English when Æthelstan captured York after Sihtric's death and Constantine of Scotland, Hywel Dda of Deheubarth (the man who eventually ruled over most of Wales), Ealdred of Bamburgh (remember the castle?!) and Owain of Strathclyde (the location of stage 1) accepted his overlordship. If this period of history has you interested then Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series, a fictionalised historical novel series set in this period of history, centring around Uhtred of Bebbanburg (yes! That's Bamburgh again!).
This region is also famous for Perry, or pear-cider (we'll not go into that argument here...). Similar to apple cider (or hard cider for the US audience), Perry is an alcoholic drink made from fermented pears. It needs to be pears and pears only, many of the mass-produced pear ciders are not true pear-ciders as they use apple-cider as a base. It's well worth getting a bottle of real Perry if you are ever in the area.
That's your lot today, it took me 20 minutes to work out how to get that Æ symbol to appear! Route and profile below. Enjoy the stage:
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