You are reading a single comment by @blue_fleet and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@blue_fleet
Been in Wales for two weeks so taking any opportunity to get out on two wheels. I am nominating myself for the Nobel Prize for stupidity for coming here without a jacket, I should know better.
Last weekend I went camping and mountain biking in Coed Y Brenin, they’d done at least 3 new trails since I was last there, Dragons Back being the pick of them. I did’nt have a camera but my bro took this pic with his phone which had some effect on, jaw dropping views abound.
We camped at Cae Gwyn campsite about half a mile up the road and I’d recommend it but the gnats were not so awesome.
This weekend I went out solo to explore some of the unlisted rabbit warren of country lanes round here, navigating them without a garmin is a challenge as only about 1 in 4 junctions has any signs.
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/830959
I armed myself with an OS map and headed out, but still got lost a few times, managing to do an unplanned loop within 5 miles of starting, but the views made up for it.
Then went over to Montgomery, where many moons ago I bought my first bike in an auction after withdrawing my savings from my Post Office Account. Then cycled up over Cefn Y Coed where I lived till High School age, in sheer disbelief that I used to cycle round there on my 3 speed Raleigh Bomber, which weighed about as much as your average bungalow. Useless trivia fact Julie Christie used to live just out of shot on the right of this photo.
Lovely descent from here to Abermule, then a long slog all the way up to the top of Kerry forest which was like an Alpine climb and seemed to go on forever. My regular training over the Col de la Vauxhall Bridge did not prepare me. Here is pic from the top.
Lanes were amazingly quiet but with blind corners and some shocking surfaces so slow on the descents. It felt like the Andes mountains as they even had fluffy Llamas or Alpacas or whatever these creatures are. It will never been taken seriously though as it had the most comedy run imaginable, like someone else was operating the legs a with remote control.
And then right up in the hills it rained, a lot, and after an hour I was utterly soaked and getting so cold I was shivering, in the middle of day, in August, FFS! So I had to shed my sodden jersey and cower under a tree trying to get my whole body covered in a jumper and pretend the toffee coated flapjack made up for not having a jacket. It did’nt. Eventually the rain stopped and I carried on, by the time I got home I was knackered, it felt like I’d done much more climbing that I had but was still a great day in the wilderness and I avoided having to drink my own piss, which was nice.