A bit of informal route research today round the Wye Valley. I’d come here intending to ride through the recently opened (2021) Tidenham Tunnel, the vital link in the lovely five-mile Wye Valley Greenway.
![](https://e2e.bike/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RR-Hereford-4a-1024x775.jpg)
I started with a sortie across the (old) Severn Bridge and back, over its dramatic 1.6km cyclable crossing (including the Aust Viaduct, main Severn span, Beachley Viaduct and then Wye Bridge).
![](https://e2e.bike/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RR-Hereford-4aa-1024x200.jpg)
![](https://e2e.bike/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RR-Hereford-4b-1024x736.jpg)
It’s rather odd, cycling alongside a motorway. From a motorway services which has customer bike parking. Over a massive estuary and a major river.
![](https://e2e.bike/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RR-Hereford-4c-1024x531.jpg)
Back in Chepstow I carried northwest past the racecourse and up into the hills so I could whizz down the lane of the Anghidi Valley, a very pleasant (and untrafficked) freewheel most of the way.
![](https://e2e.bike/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RR-Hereford-4ca-1024x684.jpg)
That got me to Tintern, and a bridge which is apparently famous from ‘Sex Education’, which is apparently a ‘TV series’ on ‘Netflix’, popular with the young people, I’m told.
![](https://e2e.bike/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RR-Hereford-4d-1024x248.jpg)
I was more interested in looking at the magnificent Abbey ruins – not paying to go inside and see them any closer, obviously – and perusing the menu of the cafe, which was full of cyclists who were cycling further and faster than me.
![](https://e2e.bike/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RR-Hereford-4da-1024x879.jpg)
However, I did cross that bridge – a former railway – to do the Wye Valley Greenway back to Chepstow. I knew from my diligent research (Googling the night before) that I’d have a problem. The Tunnel is closed from 31 Oct to 1 Apr because of bats, and I was a few days too early.
That meant leaving the Greenway for a three-mile detour up a very steep forest track, though it was hardly rougher than the unsurfaced railtrail of the Greenway hitherto.
![](https://e2e.bike/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RR-Hereford-4db-1024x631.jpg)
I joined the main road to Chepstow but came off a side lane to scramble my way down to the southern bit of the railtrail – nicely tarmacked – that start from the (closed) south entrance of the Tunnel.
![](https://e2e.bike/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RR-Hereford-4e-1024x499.jpg)
Anyway, I hope the bats are happy with their home. What’s the most important thing about finding a place to live if you’re a bat? Echolocation, echolocation, echolocation.
And I got back to Chepstow via the splendid old bridge over the Wye. I started my Welsh End to End here in 2020. Curiously, on the east side it says WELCOME TO ENGLAND, but on the west side, just MONMOUTH.
All in all, a very nice loop. But rather more fun when the Tunnel’s open.