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So I'm planning on heading up to bethnal green to sit in a park, drink beer and potentially meet people from the internet tomorrow late afternoon. Anyone else?
Looks like Paradise Cycles shuts at 6. Paradise Gardens is right by it but there's not much to it, I think Bethnal Green Gardens is probably better. I'll aim for between 5 and 5.30. @larsenroad if you guys are running late post here and we can grab the boxes for you. (Also there's no obligation to hang out with dorks from the forum!)
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@larsenroad - are you still making good time? Did you have to stop for the rain? Some heavy rain just passed through London, might be a bit more later this evening but not so bad.
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Made it!
Day 6 - https://strava.app.link/Op3kjFkMgBb
Great service at Paradise and bikes are being boxed atm.
We always get a bunch of rain on the last day, so we expected nothing less today :)
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Thanks! We’ll head for 40 Maltby st later tonight if anyone wants to say hi.
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Been home for a couple of days after what ended up as a great trip, even with the one day lost thanks for the shitty airline.
Going to post a proper report once we get photos developed, but in the meantime I want to give a big shoutout to @platypus for hosting us in London. We skipped going downtown and had takeaway all together in his garden and some bottles of wine. Perfect way end to the trip.
Also big thanks to Paradise Cycles for excellent service packing our dirty bikes and working overtime on a Saturday with big smiles only. Very cool shop!
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Prologue
First challenge was a text message from SAS late Saturday evening cancelling our 8 AM flight the morning after. The four of us subsequently got rebooked to three different flights on three separate days, which would’ve made the trip impossible by losing 2,5 days of our 7 planned days of riding. We managed to make some changes and finally got all four of us to Manchester a good day after what was planned, but at least we got there. Not wanting to make changes to the carefully planned route, we figured we’d have enough time to make it in six days instead of seven. First day would be short because of the flight to Manchester, and the last because we had to make it to London in time to pack our bikes. So the four days in between would be long, but hopefully manageable.
Day 1: Manchester Airport – Chester
67 km / 470 mWith the fragmented team finally back together, we based at Holiday Inn by the airport and assembled our bikes after a crap meal at the hotel. With all bikes ready and boxes safely delivered for recycling we set off VERY carefully on what to us is the wrong side of the road. After looking back and forth nineteen times in the first roundabout we felt like we got the hang of it and immediately rode into a dead end next to the airport. Subsequently, we rode a few kilometers on some horribly trafficy roads, questioning our whole mission. But we persevered.
Quickly enough, the route led us into beautiful and quiet roads and we started enjoying ourselves more confidently. Hedges started appearing more frequently and suddenly we did a hard left and went through a gate. We found ourselves – to our surprise – in a huge park. Reading up after returning home, it was Tatton Park, which includes a 2000 acre deer park. We saw a bunch of animals and it was the first of many highlights to come.
Onwards we found a place to have dinner and a beer called The Leigh Arms. Maybe it was the stoke of finally being on the road, but the meal was amazing. Wished to have stayed for more beers, but we were only halfway to our intended campsite. So with bellies fully charged we chugged on and got to Chester where we camped at a farm.
https://www.strava.com/activities/9382795856
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Day 2: Chester – Penhros Isaf Bothy
118 km / 2075 mWe knew we had a big day ahead of us with a lot of climbing and headwind, so we got going reasonably early. After riding alongside the canal we stopped at Yvonne's Cafe in Deeside. Lovely place where the local construction workers must’ve thought we were some kind of clowns. But a friendly place and great pastry out in the sun. Coffee not so good.
After that it started getting more rural. Pace slowed down as headwind increased and route got hillier. We aimed for lunch in Denbigh where we were unsuccessful in our search for a nice place to eat and ended up at Morrisons. At least we got to charge our phones and got ourselves the first full English of the trip.
This was the last time in a while where we could pronounce the name of our location.The proper climbing started as we fought our way up into Gors Maen Llwyd – a nature reserve. Not spectacular, but beautiful views and a bit like Windows 95 on an average day. From the top we rolled down to Pentrefoelas where we had an ice cream and took a hard left, heading for Snowdonia.
It was at this moment that parts of the group wished they had spent more time on the bike before the trip. Headwind increasing and a mountain pass that seemed to never end. Still, we prevailed and hauled ourselves over the pass where we were awarded with an amazing view of Cardigan Bay as we finally enjoyed a long, winding downhill.
Another hard left followed immediately by a short but spicy 16% climb snapped us back to reality and we started heading south for dinner and tonight's planned bothy experience.
We stopped for dinner at a pub in Trawsfynydd. For the second time that day we were served underwhelming food and looked at as clowns by the locals. I got a feeling that rugby is the only accepted sport in that village. Beer was good, but it was getting late and we hustled along.
We really enjoyed blazing down the highway before the last climb of the day – a bumpy fire trail up 1.25 km with 8% – but with the finish line in sight it was quite enjoyable.
The bothy appeared amongst the trees as the sun was starting to paint colours in the sky. A lone bikepacker was standing there, waiting for us. For a moment I thought it was one of you guys here who had decided to surprise us, but it wasn’t. Just a guy doing his own thing, and he seemed happy to not have to stay in the bothy by himself.
We had a beer, some chips and tried to keep the gnat at bay before heading inside for some well deserved sleep.
https://www.strava.com/activities/9391784388
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Been slacking with writing more, but my official excuse is that I've been waiting for Sveinung's pictures to develope and be edited. Now they are here, so posting a few from the first two days, and I'll be back with day 3 soon.
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Day 3: Penhros Isaf Bothy – Builth Wells (1/3)
113 km / 1958 mThe bothy experience! I think we all had the worst night’s sleep of the whole trip, but still super happy to have made the stop.
Pros:
- Building cool af
- Not having to pitch a tent
Cons:
- Dirty and moldy
- Crap air quality
We packed up our gear and rolled down through a beautiful forest and into Dolgellau – a ridiculously cozy town where we had our well deserved full english. This one was probably the best of the whole trip. We had a few cups of coffee as we charged ourselves and our phones, procrastinating slowly towards departure.
Our hesitance to get going turned out to be well justified, as we headed straight into a wall of a climb followed by a busy main road. This turned out to be our one bad experience with traffic in Wales, but after an hour or so, we finally got onto a B-road heading into Machynlleth. We had lunch on a lawn as the weather turned sunny. Moral was creeping north again after the traffic slap in the morning, and we got going, climbing steadily to ditch the hedges and start enjoying the views.
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- Building cool af
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Day 3 (2/3)
The climb up Machynlleth Mountain was a good 10k at 4,5% avg., but with steep sections of 10% avg. It was hard, but proper nice. A narrow road with no cars and lush green views wherever you pointed your head.
We rolled down to Llanidloes where we snacked on the sidewalk. It was already 5 PM and we’d only covered 70 km due to our mucking about and slow average speed so far. Once we got going, however, the terrain got easier after a while and we were picking up speed. We pedaled into Rhayader, and motivated by our recent increase of pace, decided to keep going for Builth Wells.
The desolated and fast roads made it easy and enjoyable, and we averaged 30 kph for the final 20 km – full TTT mode!
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Day 3 (3/3)
We found a pub, and ended up by ourselves in the “beer garden”. No worries, we were happy, smelly and could use some privacy to get changed anyway. Got some decent food and a few beers while we checked the map for a place to camp. No obvious options, and while the sun was setting we headed back in the direction we came from. A huge campsite used for a Motorcycle and Beer (?!) festival appeared, but nobody picked up the phone. We found the farm that owned the place, and after some friendly trespassing to find the owner, a kid appeared and told us there was no way we could pitch our tents there. Camping only during the festival. So the 5000 lots to pitch tents remained untouched for the night. We did ask if he knew a place where we could camp, and he said no and told us we should head back to town.
We did no such thing, and went to the closest farm that was running the same operation by renting out their land to the festival. They met us at the site and were super friendly. Court Farm Camping gets high regards from us.
Got the beautiful spot all to ourselves. Even with running water and a loo.
Slept like babies.
https://www.strava.com/activities/9395058777
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Day 4: Builth Wells – Hortham (Bristol)
140 km / 1535 mWe started the day by brewing coffee on our beautiful, secluded campsite. Not so much because we didn’t want to wait 15 minutes and have it with breakfast in town… but more because we had brought the gear and bought the gas. It was perfectly adequate.
Back in Builth Wells we had breakfast on the other side of the road to where we had dinner the night before. I think it was good, but I can’t remember because I’m stupid enough to wait months to write this.
Tanked up we hit the road and continued the fast pace from last night for the first two hours before Hay-on-Wye. It was a cozy but/and touristy town – known for one million bookstores, which does not compute with bikepacking. We had some food in the sun and got on.
Then we started climbing, slowly lifting ourselves above the myriad of hedges. The highlight of scenicness in Wales unveiled itself. Lush, green, long views. Small switchbacks. Mountains. Sheep. It was beautiful as we fought the slight headwind towards the Gospel Path. For being just over 500 meters above sea level, it was quite spectacular.
(1/3)
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Day 4 (2/3)
From there we descended into a forest and the next hours were a blur of tiny roads encapsulated by more hedges and trees. We still had to do long days to stick to our new schedule, but agreed that we wanted to do Wye valley instead of the shorter route through Usk after Abergavenny. Everyone had spoken fondly of Wye valley. Everyone on here, but also everyone we’d met.
To be honest, it was quite underwhelming. It was basically a semi-trafficy road along a river. I think it was because we were not in business of doing stops, detours of sightseeing. Probably a super nice area to visit, but to cycle through… Anywho, when we finally stopped for dinner after 111 km, we stumbled across a cricket match. Great entertainment while we enjoyed our overpriced and mediocre food outside in the lovely evening sun.
It was already 7.30 PM when we got going, but the beer and food had numbed the tiredness and the mood was pretty good. We were going to cross the bridge, which sounded fun.
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About
Finding LFGSS
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@larsenroad
Unfortunately I'm gonna be out of town when you grace London.
Have a salt beef, pickles and mustard bagel at Bagel Bake and yeah, Hop Kingdom on Druid Street is always a good laugh if you want to meet fixed, mess fam and skaters crew.