The following excerpts are from Aug 2008…
We’ll myself and Mr Marr completed the run from Magor to Haverfordwest last Sunday after covering around 170 miles in the three days. Marrsy had cycled from Yoevil to Magor on the Thurs which added an extra 110 miles to his trip!!!!!!
We set off from Magor Friday morning around 9:45 fully fuelled from an Indian and a couple of beers the night before, it took all of 1.5 miles for me to get my first pain, as I realised that I had never used my “new” trainers on the bike before and my sole started hurting (sign of the wimpyness to come!).
Anyway, we made it at a quick pace down to the transporter bridge in Newport, only to find that it was completely shut – so one quick detour later we were back on the Cycle Route 4. Following the route through the scariest, most run-down areas of Newport (the trail always seems to take you through the dodgy areas of the towns) we emerged into Tredegar Park under the motorway and out towards Bassleg.
This was the first time we lost the trail.
After a little map reading, and gps’ing we found the trail again and continued up the first (of 143,000,000) hills on the route. After a time Marrsy insisted I had to drink something and also forced a tracker on me (yummy – forgot how nice trackers were) – so here I was with a bike, some fingerless gloves chewing viscously on a tracker bar – did I feel like an experienced cyclist or what!!!!…
The route got a little confused, but we found our way to Ponty via Caerphilly where we had a lunch stop. As we tucked into our energy food bars and glucose drinks Marrsy looked at the map and told me the “worst” was over for the day, and it would be a single hill, then downhill all the way to Port Talbot – the lying bastard…!
I was feeling OK, we had done approx 40 miles – more than twice the distance I had ever ridden in one go before, and ready for the easy decent into Port Talbot and a couple of beers in the bar. This is where the journey took a turn for the worst.
We left Ponty, and headed South West, which on a map looks like it should be downhill, oh no, we met a hill. Well I say a hill, it was the most enormous mountain track I have ever seen. Round by me is a steep hill, and it is quite steep – but this must have been a 1:1, I started spritely enough, passing cars that were abandoned due to the steepness of the hill, continued for about 7 minutes when I passed an elderly lady who was trudging up the hill with the groceries, “Hi I said – much further to go on the hill” – to which see replied with the devils glint in her eyes – “Yes, this ones a killer!!!!”… Arrggggghhh..
I managed to get into low gear, which is so easy to pedal a two year old could get up a hill, but I was going so slowly in this that the shape of Mr Marr had disappeared into the distance. After 6 hrs I got to the first bend in the road – we must be at the summit I thought, but no, as i wobbled around the bend I saw facsimile of the original hill in front of me – I did think about hanging myself with my cycle lock, but though I’d better leave that for the Bridgend route.
I continued for a short while, but then just had to stop, I was completely out of energy and thought I was melting. I stopped, drank a bottle of lucazade and ate two pounds of harabo’s and I was ready to continue. After another 4 hrs I joined Marrsy at “the top”. He was rested and out sunbathing on his (incredibly compact) towel. We’re here I gasped – oh no, we’re not at the top yet…
After a couple of other stupendously large hills, and numerous back tracks (one after climbing 20,000ft) we finally descended into Margam, which seemed to be from the map an easy freewheel into Port Talbot – it wasn’t.
We finally got to the hotel around 19:00 on the Friday night, I was sore and the most tired I had ever been, in fact if you had taken all of the tiredness I had ever been in my life and rolled it into one – I was more tired than that. We managed to get down for a couple of beers and some food then to bed around 10:30. I didn’t sleep much, my knee hurt quite a lot, and I really thought I would have to give up.