I'm back in! It helps to have a pal like Dr Evil, who turned out to be handy with a credit card. I didn't even have to resort to the trespass-with-ladder approach, the smash-it-and-worry-afterwards plan, or even the give-up-and-cry-in-the-pub option.
Nice words,
@swansonj.
I had thought, after we had to postpone it, that the ride was in danger of not happening. This was a sad thing to contemplate, after three very happy years when it had come to seem something that was very much Meant to Be. So I am very grateful to the small but distinguished band of adventurers that gathered in Roald Dahl Plass against the odds, and in many cases at considerable expense and inconvenience. And I apologize to those who had their hearts or their train tickets set on the July date, and couldn't make the August one. We missed you. I am also grateful to Hilary at Ogmore, who agreed to a preposterous idea from a strange caller with but a few days' notice, and to Dennis and Irena at Ripples, who got up early and laid on a special menu and some cold yellow beers that have so far proved difficult to pay for. I am working on it.
The rest, as ever, has mostly been said. My favourite bits are the drop into the dark lanes through Llantrithyd and beyond, the Dimlands Road out of Llantwit Major, the view over Crymlyn Bog with the morning mist, and the well-earned superspeedy descent through Cimla into Neath. The lanes were more than a trifle hazardous when we first discovered them in 2011, but re-surfacing since has made it possible to swoop and twist through them with more abandon, and being at the head of the ride attempting to pace half-familiar twisty dark lanes for joy without disaster is absurdly exhilarating. The stars were beautiful when we stopped at the Wick Road crossing.
About that cold. It was undeniably cold. Sorry. But it was dry, and insofar as there was sometimes a headwind, it wasn't really the sort that counts. The weather gods smile upon this ride, as is well known, but they like to remind us now and again that it is a gift. They laid on all the balminess they could muster for a night in July, got mildly miffed when we didn't show, and decided to lend a keen edge to an otherwise perfect night by way of a gentle but insistent reproach. Such is the prerogative of the gods - this particular tendency has been hinted at before, in the form of mysterious pockets of hot air and cold mist, which appear and disappear without warning within the space of mere metres. The sun warming us at breakfast may be viewed as reward and forgiveness.
Porridge was greeted with approbation, the coffee was good, and breakfast was followed by Beer from Nowhere. With established post-ride boozers of the calibre of
@User482 and
@McWobble, it could well have got out of hand, had the Megalicious Meg not been named as Designated Responsible Person. There was a train issue, causing us to reflect on the pointlessness of Bath Spa, and as the morning drifted on, friends drifted away - inevitably too soon, for me, although probably not soon enough to cushion whatever First Great Western had in store for them. I hope you all got home OK. McWobble and I were the last to leave Ripples, and (having spurned the worse-than-useless West Cross Inn) sank the ride's last pints in a sunny but noisy spot in front of the Woodman, which enabled us to pass suitably unflattering judgements on those making the mistake of motoring to and from the Mwmbwls. I bimbled home, already missing everybody, had a hot bath, and slept in the afternoon sun in the back room. I meant to get up again and eat dinner, but forgot. Someone broke my reverie at 11pm with a text to remind me I was supposed to be at a birthday party, so I got up and had another beer for what felt like breakfast again, this time in the spinning lights of a mirror ball. It's a habit I'll need to get out of before Tuesday...
