If you want a longer day, it is a nice ride from Bristol down past Chew Valley Lake.įacilities: There are a couple of pubs and cafes on the Mendips to pop to the loo (not very discreetly in lyrca mind you…) or fill up your bottle, including my personal favourite: The Priddy Good Farm Shop. To read more about their award-winning pies and riding on the Mendips, check out this post about my first ride up Cheddar Gorge. Glastonbury and Wells, both of which you will pass through, have much more choice. Relatively fit but would like to relax walking it. Hi, how long does it take to walk up to the tor and back again. There are no trains to the Mendips but you could get one to Weston-Super-Mare to the west of the hills. Book your tickets online for Glastonbury Tor, Glastonbury: See 2,812 reviews, articles, and 1,716 photos of Glastonbury Tor, ranked No.2 on Tripadvisor among 26 attractions in Glastonbury. Transport: We drove to Priddy and parked near the village green. Time: 2 hours Distance: 28 miles Elevation: 1900ft (580m)īelow, I have suggested a longer route that takes in the Mendips, Glastonbury, Burham-On-Sea and Cheddar Gorge as a 60-odd mile loop which I’m really keen to do. For more details, check out my ride on Strava. This is the quick 2 hour loop I did – out and back – from Priddy. LIKE WHAT YOU JUST READ? WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO THIS RIDE? LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW, TWEET ME, OR FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM. If, like me, you’ve done Cheddar Gorge, Burrington Combe and Harptree Hill (from Chew Valley Lake), this climb makes a nice addition to your Mendip hills repertoire. It’s steep sections are more prolonged than Cheddar Gorge (with a maximum gradient of 16.6%), but there are moments of respite where it flattens off, especially before the final stretch. I loved it.ĭon’t get me wrong, it’s got nothing on Cheddar Gorge. Passing the main National Trust entrance to the north, you get a fantastic view of the tor and the tower perched on top.Ĭompared to Cheddar Gorge, the climb up to the top of the Mendips from this side is brutal. If you are planning on visiting you’ll need to get a minibus up from Glastonbury centre or walk up. The roads around the tor are beautifully quiet because only disabled parking is allowed. I bypassed this by joining up some lovely sounding roads to the south of the tor – Gypsie Lane and Basketfield Lane – to connect with Stone Down lane near the summit when it becomes tarmac again. The road over Glastonbury Tor from the east (Stone Down Lane) is actually a gravel byway that may once have been tarmacked but has long since fallen into disrepair. On balance, I think that it helped with my motivation, hunting it down one mile at a time.Ĭue obligatory photograph near a sign (with bike).ĭon’t follow the National Cycle route blindly at this point. Glastonbury Tor remained a mere speck on the horizon for a long part of the ride. The rather nice (and at times frustrating) thing I found about riding in the Somerset Levels is that you can see where you are aiming for ALL the time.