My ride yesterday. Unfortunately most of my photos taken later in the day were ruined. When I stuffed the camera in my bar bag, the settings must have shifted, and they were all horribly over-exposed.
A fantastic day out in Wales with my mate Rich W from Kingsway CC and my man in Wales, (our Passepartout),
@Banjo. Started off in the village of Marshfield between Cardiff and Newport, and had a nice gentle and pan flat flat ride below sea level until we got to the Newport Transporter Bridge. There's something about unusual bridges and ferries that I really love, and I like to take bike rides across them. This one ticked both boxes, as the road surface itself hangs on wires and gets ferried across the River Usk. It is a classic piece of Victoriana. ..... in it's time, cutting edge technology, but constructed in a madcap end-of-the-pier helter-skelter funfair style. There was a bit of waiting around for it to open (@10:00am for anyone who is thinking of trying it), but I enjoyed the experience tremendously.
A few of the surviving photos:
(1) Me with
@Banjo:
View attachment 348954
(2) Banjo & Rich:
View attachment 348950
(3) The wonderful transporter in full flight:
View attachment 348953
After that, we picked our way up some steep streets in Newport and then out along wonderfully scenic quiet roads through Caerleon and Usk to Abergavenny, stopping at a motorbikers' cafe (the Steel Horse) for pancakes and bacon with syrup. I know. But somehow it works. That fuelled us up nicely to take on the mighty Tumble. Four miles of climbing, with a brutal average of 10%
. Here we cut Rich loose and let him go for it. Fair play to him, he got up it in one, and had plenty of time to sit back on a grassy mound in the sunshine eating an icecream and chatting to other cyclists. I didn't fare so well, stopping four times on the climb. Still reckon I was probably the fastest 20 stoner to get up there for a while, though. What got me was the 13-15% bits climbing up through the woods for the first couple of miles. Fortunately the half mile immediatley before the summit is much gentler, so you can arrive at the top still retaining a modicum of dignity. I decided to defy our club rules of never being photographed holding your bike above your head. (What the hell!).
View attachment 348955
The descent through Blaenavon was exhilarating, and we had a great ride through Pontypool (apart from getting a bit lost) and onwards mostly downhill back to Newport and Marshfield. We had two more stops on the way, one in a cracking new cafe at the side of a reservoir at Llandegfedd, and then a final stop in the riverside beer garden of a pub in Caerleon. A truly brilliant day out. many thanks again to Banjo for plotting the route and keeping me company on the climb, pretending not to want to go any faster. Oh, and for the coffee and cake.
112Km (69.7 miles) and one big mountain done. Loved it all. I shall be back to wales again and again. Just a shame none of my photos of the beautiful country side survived. There's no way I'm doing the club ride today, so I'm off out for Sunday lunch with Mrs Donger. Cheers.
). It's a full carbon racer, which is very different to what I'm used to!
.
and text from big sister did I fancy meeting a Nice Pies for breakfast ? Err yes . Nice pies is 16 miles from home so a 50km ride . Took the direct route Anstey ,Cropston ,Rothley ,Cossington ,Sileby ,Seagrave to Nice pies . Just ordering my coffee and sister walked in . So nice relaxed time consuming coffee and breakfast while chatting away .Back on the bike fairly direct route back again but went to Barrow instead of Sileby . Back home with 32.7 miles in the bag and the legs are not to bad but I felt the hills today. The weekend miles turned April into my biggest milage month and this week done 250 miles which I still find hard to believe I can complete this sort of milage
and 6 weeks of a sling
