These are excerpts from Aug 2008…
SAT.
Glorious Saturday, another 60 – 70 miles in the height of Summer, what could be better. Woke up – it was pissing down, absolutely, totally, completely pissing down – and just slightly windy!!. We got our bikes out of the hotel at 09:00, by 09:01 we were soaked to the skin from the waist down, by 09:02 I realised that being in pain sitting on the bed was nothing compared to the agony of sitting on the razor seat on my bike, by 09:03 I realised that my knee pain was not imaginary and after the first revolution of my pedal I knew this was going to be a hard day…
I had to get brufen, and I figured a crepe bandage thing would be in order, closest shopping point – the quadrant, just over the bridge, well just over the bridge and 11 miles away in the driving wind and rain. I took to repeatedly banging my head on my brake lever to take my mind off the pain in my knee. As we motored on down the road into Swansea lorries were splashing us with massive waves of water, we didn’t even notice it was raining so hard. So pilled and strapped up we continued to the promenade. Now, on a summer morning this is a fabulous place to be, pretty flat with a great view over the sea – however when the wind is howling and the rain the pouring it is the biggest shithole in the known world. Lucky for me, and I’ll take this opportunity to thank him again, Mr Marr took the lead and I attempted to slip steam. This was a help, but as the wind was coming across us, not perfect, and added to the fact he cycles twice as fast as me it was still a struggle. We found the route and ascended up from Swansea to Gowerton and across to Llanelli.
We got to Burry port and I had a puncture – Marrsy the genius sorted it (after a trip to a very convenient cycle shop) and we were on our way.
Once here we took the path through the wildlife areas, and the “roadway” was actually made up of mostly sand, which of course was soaking, we were by the sea and had the pleasure of the sea breeze and bludy pouring rain – did I tell you it was wet? This was almost the hardest point of all, cycling against the wind, though this sand soaking and hurting was awful – as was seeing Marrsy pulling away like a man possessed in front. I hurt – a lot.
Got to Pembry, the road got better (slightly), but it was even hard work cycling slightly downhill, the weather was worse, at times you could barely see in front of you. We stopped in Kidwelly for a snack – then on to ferryside.
We got to ferryside and it was literally like being in a waterfall, we made a decision, we needed alternative transport….
We got to the train crossing, and a bloke shouted from the controller box – we went to investigate, he told us stories of long tubes full of people which could ferry you over land to other places, where you could be dry and relax without too much pain and the miles passed, he made us a brew, we sat in his signal box regaling each other with tales of yore, outside it rained.
We looked at he map, and decided that due to the circumstances it would be prudent to take the train to Whitland, and travel back to Laugharne from there – this probably saved us around 10 miles in total I think, but with the state of the weather at that time, and although I wanted to do every single bit, it was a choice we had to make. So we went to Whitland and got back on the cycles – soaked, covered in sand and thoroughly hurting I got back on that devil of a machine and started again, up and down to laugharne. The hills around here are the biggest and longest I have ever seen, it had been a long tiring day, and I was virtually in tears as we got closer to laugharne shouting and swearing at the sodding wind as it took great pleasure in really really really really pissing me off. But we arrived.
We got there and everything I possessed was soaked, even in my bag – my money, maps, clean clothes, everything – luckily our hosts took everything in and washed and dried it, although I did have the pleasure of borrowing some of marrsys attire as we waited in the BB for the drying to complete. So out we went, in soaking shoes to get some food – we went to a “tapas” place, and I ordered every one of the meat ones, and ate them – cycling makes me hungry!!! ;o)