Rubbish night.
Marrsy read for a bit – which was no problem, and I drifted into a light sleep, then he switched the light off, and at that exact moment the band from across the street started up. They were not good, but they had animal on the drums. He shut the window and even drew the blackout blinds to see if that helped – it didn’t. I stuck a pillow round both ears and after a long time drifted off. It is official that Marrsy does in fact snore, but in a very polite way. It woke me possibly – drums were still drumming, but now someone was strangling the compere – his snoring only lasted for 30 seconds, and assuming there was no more to come I slept a little again. Woke at 1:30 no noise, went for a wee-wee, then slept for a little longer. The Marrsy went for a very noisy toilet adventure, then I woke again after another hour to the sound of the shower on. I dragged myself out of bed, and the noise was the heavy rain causing a torrent to run past the skylight in the wet room. I got up at 6:00.
As usual I took a brisk stroll around Llanidloes, but the rain cut this short – we were in for a wet one.. One fantastic breakfast later, and we were watered and gps’d up and off we trotted. We had a horrible four mile of uphill immediately as we got on the bikes, at one point I figured it was harder than necessary and realised my back brake was playing up and locking on – this was where I started favoring the front brake. Once at the top and after seeing a little baby Severn – we cycled along some nice lanes in the light drizzle. Along the route we came to a farm, and then through his gate, and slightly up hill between the sheep and goats. It was raining a little more heavily now and the animals were wuite happy to sit in the road – until you got close. I was now sick of speaking to all the sheep I saw, so they got no conversations from me.
We skirted Rhayadar through some nice lanes and were almost run over by some fast mountain bikers, then turned off the cycle path back onto lanes. Here we crossed the River Elan, and met up with Paul for a photo op, and a wee. We left Paul thinking we would stop at Newbridge, and he sat and watch 150 tractors roll past, and we took off along some lovely rolling countryside, until we go to the “off road” bit.
Mountain goats would have refused to use it. I had only a front brake, and a slit in my tire and crappy spd clip on shoes. I struggled. Alot. The others disappeared into the distance – The Brend even tried to cycle it, but that lasted for 3 meters. I couldn’t walk it easily – it was a mountain bike track, and even with on e of those it would have been a challenge. I pushed for about half a mile, then gingerly got on the bike and gently gently cycled the rest. It went on for an age, but actually only a mile and a half. My arms and feet and hands were aching badly when we finally got back onto tarmac – hooray! It rained.
We got to Newbridge, and found nothing there other than intense, pouring rain. It was, to coin a phrase, biblical. We were damp. So, after skipping through, and me making Marrsy go back to a junction (sorry) we headed off into the torrent. Wet, but relatively easy few mile cycle took us into Builth Wells, where we dripped inside a Spar, and shivered outside in munching on crisps, steak bakes and jelly sweets. After waiting just long enough for The Brend to go blue, and with teeth chattering we set off for the final hack into Hay.
The trip from here was okay, there were a couple of up hills, but a lot of flatish, all together cycling. Good old Marrsy kept to the front of the pentalon, and took the majority of the wind, we tucked in behind and had a pretty good cycle – averaging around 19 mph in many sections and before we knew it, and soaking wet we arrived into Hay.
Paul had checked us in, and informed the landlady of our wetness. She put the fire on, and placed an airer for us to dump our wetness upon. Stripped in the dining room, we retired for warmth to our rooms. Not such a great place tonight, too old fashioned for my tastes, and the shower was completely useless, but soon, and quite early we headed out into Hay, for a game of “find a bookshop”. We all won that game.
By half four I was having a pint – now this is what its all about. After having a look around a camping shop (ohh, sailor) and deciding not to buy any sparkly hot pants from there, the rest joined us for beers, then beers and nibbles, then a beer and food. Marrsy made us go to the most expensive pub in Wales, but the steak was okay. Final pint was had and after being suitably relaxed we did have a great chuckle over The Brends opinion on improving the Natural History Museum – home early doors. Really looking forward to a nice sleep tonight, <Foreshadowing> Paul mentioned he sometimes leaves the TV on, loud, when he is in hotels <\Foreshadowing> My knee had started hurting properly now, and had some slight pains from every single muscle in my body.
Third day of cycling finished, we did around 55 miles today and a cumulative assent of about 3600ft. My track is available from:
http://www.strava.com/activities/72110978