Rubbish night
Woke at 1:00 am to some kerfuffle from our shared toilet, once awake I needed to have a wee-wee, so stumbled out to the light where I saw Brend looking a little sheepish and mumbling something about a smell, at one o clock in the morning I wasn’t too bothered. Marrsy sleeps like a baby (or so I thought), so it was just the fact that there was commotion going on around which made me wake up every 13 seconds. By 6:30 I had enought and got myself dressed and out.
Took a stroll around Barmouth in the early morning – something I enjoy doing on these cycles. Even though I am generally tired I seem to get up early, and once up take a walk around the place we are at before most people are awake – that’s good. Luckily Co-op was open, so got another couple of lucozades and whilst enjoying one I strolled the town. Back in time to see the rest of the gang get up and after a large, if not 100% meat, breakfast we started preparing for the day ahead..
I faffed for an age to get my gps to work, and filled the bottles and made sure the landlord wasn’t ripping us off, but by around nine we headed out of Barmouth onto a 10 mile flat, with the wind behind us run. After the weird feeling wooden bridge (no toll man, so like the anarchists we are we just went straight over) we had the wind behind us and a great run ahead. Within 15 mins we had the first flat. Dave’s rear had packed in (and his wheel was flat), and whilst changing it they managed to knacker up the valve, break both the plastic things you use to remove the tire, and break Marrsys pump. And make me and Brend rather cold, hanging about. Span must have felt like he was pissing in the wind, and indeed once he changed the wheel he did. But we phoned the support crew to meet us and we were away.
Great cycle into Dolgellau, where we met Paul and restocked with inner tubes, pumps and water. Marrsy warned us that it was to get steep from here, for hjgdshjgsf miles. (little did we know that hjgdshjgsf miles was a lot). Just 10 yards from the stop we turned right, and this was the beginning of a week of up hill, there was a youngish lad in front of us, who looked scared – Marrsy chased him down, I just dreamt of down.
The hill was steep, as always and went up for three miles, the down for a mile – which was wonderful. The we crossed the busy road and Marrsy pointed us at a mountain – yep we are going up that. It didn’t even have a proper road, I lagged behind as the mentals raced away. It was at times so steep that the sheep were rolling down, only had to stand for a bit, but it was h-a-r-d. Photo’s at the top then a really scary downhill, this was real steep and you had to keep your brakes on , and even then you barely slowed down. The next 10 miles were mostly downhill, but with some sneaky ups, then we got to Corris, and hoped to meet the main road into Machynlleth. We got to the main road, and realised we had missed the cycle track. Assuming the cycle track is better than a normal road we re-traced our tracks and set off. It was bloody hilly again!!! We thought we were on the downhill to the next stop, but bloody hell we were not. I was swearing again around now. But we made it to the town, and everything was good with the world.
We stopped at a cafe, and as I picked up my bike to put it on the curb, my bloody back wheel fell off. So I had been down the steepest grads to date, running over humps and bumps at 20 odd mile an hour and my wheel wasnt connected properly. I was too knacked to care though, and threw a lovely ham omelette down me neck. Whilst we were here a bee tried to commit suicide. Now I hear that bee’s are under threat – well I am not surprised, it flew into a can of tango, and when it was finally removed it was orange! No not really, but he had a lot of sticky, orangey, really tasty drink all over his little wings. We left him on the floor to his fate.
After the stop I felt like a fat, green, sausage.
We left Machynlleth and turned right, there was a hill (and maybe a pattern). It was gentleish at first, for the first two miles, then it exploded. The rest buggered off, even though we had been waiting for The Brend, even he left me in a trance. You could see the hill before you, and looking on google maps it looks like nothing ( http://goo.gl/maps/b67YE ) but I shed a tear. It was massive, and there was three false summits, the guys waited for me until they could wait no more (I did catch them before they left). Then we had another push for the top. Looking at google I cannot believe I was such a shandy, but honestly it was steep – really?
On the other side they had gone, and it was steep. It was a proper, big road, but I knew by now I had a nasty split in my tires, I zoomed, but not enough. After a few hundred feet of speed I did think I might have gone the wrong way. we almost stropped at the pub, but it was closed so we descended, quick smart until we turned off for the national parklands.
We had a couple of ups after this, but the majority was down, and we had a great decent into Llanidloes, when the team left me again, at one point I thought The Brend had crashed into a fence, but it was just a village full of scarecrows. After arriving in Llanidloes we found our really excellent accommodation at the Coach and Horses. Everything was great here, massive room, double bed (for me!) and a wet room. I did feel like I was being filmed at all times though – so if you see a late night production called Lanidloes Chub Scene- avoid. Paul went and got us some water, and fair play he carried two gallon containers back from the Spar! I also realised that my knees hurt, and my back even more, also the bottoms of my legs, my feet, my arms (sunburn), my neck, my hands, wrist and teeth. After a short while we hit the delights of town. It rained.
The rains started today. I had sun burn on my arms after the last two days of slow uphill facing the sun, but tonight the weather broke. We had a few beers in a couple of places but decided in the end (thanks dreadlock guy) to hit the Bengal Brasserie. Needed to get our own beers, which sounds cool but isnt, and had some great red stuff with our popodons. Dave met his wife to pick up his train tickets, and me and The Brend had a hot off over the curries. There is no questions mine was both hotter and tastier, and my lips burned no where near as much as his did.
We saw some very weird people on the way home. And I was thankful for what I hoped would be a relaxing, restful night.
Second day of cycling finished, we did around 50 miles today and a cumulative assent of about 5500ft. My track is available from:
http://www.strava.com/activities/71861998