Rubbish night.
Got to bed early, was ready for kip at 10:00, and I heard some snoring going on. Then when I turned the TV down I heard the TV through the wall, but I was knackered and couldn’t be bothered with moving, so just turned the TV up in my room and found the same channel as next doors – there was snoring the in the background. TV went off around 1:00, snoring didn’t. Woke up every 15 minutes, snorting still continuing. Woke at 6:00 and it was wet so tried to stay in bed. Snoring continued. Finally got out of bed at 6:45 – snoring stopped. That snore-jockey had snored continuously from 10:00 to 6:45 without missing a beat – or at least pretended everytime I came to in the night.
Breakie was excellent, full and English with well buttered toast and tea. After the last of 5 visits to the throne room, and after picking up my now, hardly damp, shorts and gloves we were untangling our bikes and getting sorted. We planed to be away at 9:00 – we were. Unfortunately after 4 seconds Span had another puncture, so we came back to repair it, and Span managed to get cat poo all over his hands, something of which I think he was determined to blame the landlady for. So 20 mins later we headed out – it wasn’t quite raining now.
After a slight picturesque detour, we head out of Hay and upwards. We climbed up top the Gospel Pass, and it was steep and long and steep and windswept and desolate, and steep, and cold, and windy and steep and long. I managed to just about get to the first “top”, and could just make out through the fog the rest of the team in the distance. I was sad, and tired, and hurting, and completely and utter sick to death of stupid bloody hills. This was around seven miles of pretty much continuous up, its heartbreaking – not to mention long and tiring and steep. But as with all things good, it came to an end, an end I thought wasn’t, as I was convinced we had more up to do. But we were there, the high point of the trip – ha ha. We were at 1,800 FT or about 550 meters, straight up – it was wet and cold and high and after a photo op – we started downhill.
What a downhill it was, although a little scary as I only had a front brake, we pretty much went down for 11 miles, amazing. There was a little up along that route, but at every corner I could not believe we were heading down even more, it was wonderful – but wet. We went slightly the wrong way again here, just before Abergavenny as Marrsy wanted to show us some “interesting” hills. Yep, they were interesting alright, and bastard steep.
We made it to Abergavenny in the rain, and I finally managed to get a pork roll from the shop there, which I had been after for 7 years – it was shit. We stopped only briefly here and The Brend munched on some dried fruit, everyone was keen to get home and attempt to catch the trains. We understood we only had maybe one more big hill out of Abergavenny and we would be home. We went wrong again, poor old navigator didn’t have the best of days!! But just before this, it really really rained. The sort of rain that is super impressive. The drops were the size of golfballs, and it was really wet – torrential. I really honestly had trouble breathing – it was raining that hard. Anyway after getting back on route after another visit to some more interesting hills, I realised that I had actually worn away my brake blocks completely, and it was down to the metal – so no more front braking for me…
We travel through some reasonably flat countryside down to Usk, and from here I knew the route as it was part of my training rides some 2.5 months ago. We followed the Usk down and avoiding the massive hill in Wentwood, we came out by the motorway, and a reasonably flat few miles back to Magor. Since the torrential downpour just outside Abergavenny, the rain had been pretty much at bay, until we just arrived at my house, when the hevens opened again. We met up with Paul, and he took two of the guys off to the station in Newport, and Marrsy put his massive sack on his back and set off for Severn Tunnel Jny, where he missed his train and had to wait for an hour in the rain.
So that was that, Lon Las, end to cycle of Wales./ Although the mileage on most days wasn’t horrific, the hills were at times. It was a great trip, and I think everyone enjoyed it. We saw some absolutely magnificent countryside, and it would have been great to have spent more time at some of it. But what a country to cycle through. It was wet, it was warm but most of all it was hilly.
Thank you very much to everyone who came this year – it wouldn’t be the same without you!!
Fourth day of cycling finished, we did around 55 miles today and a cumulative assent of about 4200ft. My track is available from: