Rest Day (ish). Total Miles cycled: 40...yes, on a rest day!
A good night's sleep does a power of good. The Dublin City Inn on Talbot road provided not only fantastic showers and a comfortable bed, a much needed lie in, but also a mighty fine breakfast. The breakfast room was light and airy and a fine spread was laid out. Polish waitresses glided around the room enquiring whether you wanted tea or coffee and smiling at the 20 or Spanish guests who had descended en masse for their morning coffee and jamon and eggs.
There was quite a bit of cross-lingual confusion as the non English speaking Spanish attempted to convey the fact that wanted their eggs 'La Sol side up' and the Polish waitresses politely and patiently replied, 'I'm sorry, what..er, I don't understand...you want er, (elderly Spanish lady uses fingers to draw in the air) square...crunch...aha! Toast. White or brown?'
'Que?'
We had a few hours to spend in Dublin before heading to the port back over to Wales. The three of us put on my specially designed red Scope T-Shirts, for added visual impact and in case we forgot each other's names (printed top right corner of the shirt).
It was another clear day and the walk down O'Connell Street and across the bridge to the south side of the Liffey was filled with us looking up at the many statues lining one of the widest streets in Europe.
(Simon and I had previously been to a former winner of 'Widest Street in Europe 1990, when we went behind the newly torn down iron curtain and travelled around Eastern Europe, just 6 months after the revolutions that brought an end to Communism. We found ourselves traipsing around Bucharest, Romania, looking at Caecescu's palace, the 2nd largest building in the world after the Pentagon and standing on huge boulevards, deliberately constructed to be wider than the Champs Elysees in Paris.)
A brief look at Trinity College and a spot of lunch in the Temple Bar area and we had to get back to the hotel, pack up the car and get to the port for the afternoon sailing to Holyhead. We had a very strong headwind for the 4 miles to the port, but at least this time it was dry.
The ferry trip back was a swift 2 hours and was only noteworthy for the presence on board of an extended family of people dressed in the most lurid dresses, ornate flowery shirts, wide brimmed hats, Cuban heels, and pin stripe suits. I was expecting to see a camera crew in tow from 'My Big Fat Gypsy Weddings', but sadly no.
This, remember, was our day off. Our rest day. A bit of Dublin R&R and a chance to recharge the batteries. So, like the true professional cyclists we were turning into, we did what the professionals do on a rest day in a 3 week grand tour like the Tour de France. We went cycling.
We didn't really have much choice. Have you ever been to Holyhead? I remember visits to Holyhead when I was in charge of the On Board Catering for West Coast trains back in the heady days of the 90's. 5 hour journeys to and from London Euston, a cursory visit to the catering depot and a night in the Treaddur Bay hotel. That was the highlight. Overlooking the sea in a comfortable hotel with a lovely menu, you forgot the bleak and depressing town that lay a mile away. Holyhead is very much a place you pass through, but rarely stop in.
Rest day or not, we got changed into our cycling clothes, cycled off the boat and set off to cover the length of Anglesey, before crossing over into mainland Wales and travelling along the coast to Caernarfon and into Snowdonia; our final and most daunting mountain range.
Again we benefited from a strong tail wind and the relative flatness of the A5 down through Anglesey. A few miles outside of Holyhead we passed through Valley, home to an RAF base and the current residence of the newly married Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Oliver and I thought about popping in for a cuppa, but we had still some way to go to the campsite and it was getting late.
However, we did make a stop at a place of linguistic pilgrimage. A windswept and desolate railway station that is world renowned. A place with the longest, most unpronounceable name in the whole of Britain;
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
You may ask me how to pronounce it. Well, it really is quite easy. Put a whole Mars Bar in your mouth and say anything you want....there, you're speaking fluent Welsh.
We didn't hang around too long, just enough time for a few obligatory photos before we headed off in the direction of the Menai straits and Snowdonia.
The Menai Bridge; Where Men Become Chickens
In total, at the end of 6 days of cycling, we had cycled 750km. Well, that's not quite the truth. We had cycled 749km and 583 metres. The other 417 metres were covered on foot. On two shaking, fear gripped legs. Not Oliver's, but mine.
We had reached the crossing over the Menai Straits, the Menai Bridge, built by Thomas Telford and completed in 1826. It is 417 metres long and stands a lofty 30m high over the fast flowing currents of the Menai Straits. It is an engineering marvel; not just an amazing feat of engineering, but an architectural beauty that blends harmoniously into the surrounding countryside, not an eyesore at all, but a sympathetic and stunning object to be admired and applauded. The best of British.
I hated it.
I can roar down steep hillsides at 50mp/h with nothing between the tarmac and myself other than a light aluminium / carbon frame and two thin rubber tyres and feel exhilarated. I can stand high on a mountain ridge with the slopes falling away hundreds of metres below and enjoy the view without a tinge of nervousness.
However, put me on a man made structure such as the balcony of a building or in this case a bridge that has stood for 185 years, ferrying lorries and cars day and night without falling into the water below, and my legs turn to jelly. An uncontrollable fear takes over and I can barely approach the railings, let alone look over the side. All I wanted to do was get off as quickly as possible.
That pathetic, quivering wreck on a solid, stable bridge will be crossing ravines on swinging bridges made of rope / cable and wood in Nepal in January. Wish me luck.
I made it safely to the other side and remounted the bike with a sigh of relief. Our rest day continued with a brief skirting alongside the Menai Straits, a rolling dual carriageway of long drags up rounded hillsides and fast swooping descents. We made Canaerfon and turned left to join the road into our final mountain range - Snowdonia.
Immediately the road did something strange. It pitched up in a steep, unforgiving incline. It was approaching 7:30pm and we had 3 miles to go to the campsite at Waunfawr. The hills were short, steep, leg breaking and deflating. We were tired and hungry and this last few miles were some of the most painful and difficult of the entire ride. Even Oliver admitted that he found the road from Canaerfon uncomfortably hilly. (We had to tie him down and pour soldier ants down his Lycra shorts to get him to admit it though).
We were met by Simon at the campsite. He had dutifully erected the tents, scouted the shower and toilet blocks and discovered that the on site pub would only be serving until 8:30pm. This mean a hasty change out of cycling clothes and a mad dash for the pub - missing out on a meal would have been criminal. The other reason for the mad dash was that the camping area was plagued by midges and gnats. I soon realised that these flies are not only annoying, but have a voracious appetite and their bites are incredibly itchy.
And so I entered the pub wearing my buff on my head, scratching ferociously at all bare flesh and armed with a phone charger and an empty stomach.
We had a decent meal, met a nice guy called Chris who worked for Barnados and lived near Birmingham, was a keen cyclist and kindly donated to the fundraising cause. Then it was back for a welcome shower and a sleep in the wet room (aka tent).
And wet it certainly was. Because it started raining again. In the whole trip we only experienced rain in two places. Wales (south) and Wales (north). Ireland's slight drizzle from Rosslare to Wexford is forgiven, because the road was flat and only 10 miles log. It didn't count.
Tomorrow was our last major test. 75 miles through Snowdonia, over the highest passes and mountains we had faced and on through the to hilly Welsh / English borders.
Now please forgive me, my legs need a lie down.
Day 5: Waunfawr - Snowdonia - Melverley (Oswestry)
Total Distance: 75 miles. Total amount of climbing; about 65miles.
What is the worst way to spend a night before getting on your bike and heading up and over some of the highest mountains in the UK? How about the following as a perfect recipe for a rubbish night's sleep;
- Leaky tent
- Rain during the night
- Tent invaded by biting midges
- Snoring tent mate (aha! I have ear plugs, what a clever boy)
- A menagerie of the noisiest animals 10 metres away from your tent (ear plugs aren't that good)
As was to be expected, the Welsh weather was predictably wet during the night and the first part of the morning. The tent proved as ineffective as it had on the first night. That much we could have anticipated and perhaps, tolerated.
What was absolutely not welcomed was the cacophony of farmyard animals that struck up their 'Discordant Concerto for Animal Orchestra - 'The Dawn Arrives'. First at around 4am, the cockerel crowed and proud and stupid bird that it was, didn't let up until after we left at 8:30am. Then the geese, dogs, ducks and donkeys chimed in with their bloody awful honking, barking, quacking and hee-hawing.
Midges, animals, camping area a 10 minute walk from the shower block, over a bridge over a railway line (I am not joking; you needed another shower by the time you got back to your tent)....Snowdonia Park campsite took the 'Worst Campsite on Tour' title, stealing it away from Wexford and it's pathetic excuse for a shower block.
It was a relief to get underway and head down towards Beddgelert, passing the lower slopes of Snowdon on our left.
The road is fairly straight, with slight undulations and hidden dips and not too busy with traffic. However, it was on this wet and quiet road that we came closest to a serious accident; not caused by us, but by the impatience and idiocy of Mr 'Look at me, I drive a Land Rover'.
Oliver was riding around 50 metres ahead of me. In a flash a Land Rover doing around 60mp/h over took me and remained on the righthand side of the road in order to pass Oliver. This was just as the road fell into a hidden dip and a car appeared on the other side at speed on the crest of the dip. How a head on collision was avoided is a miracle, but the LandRover driver (did I say driver, I meant Arse) swerved and braked hard, careering back over to the lefthand side of the road....his brakes screeched and he skidded on the wet surface, all the time heading directly for Oliver's back wheel. At the last moment, having wrestled control of his car, he turned the steering wheel sharply to the right and managed to pull out and overtake Oliver with what must have been inches to spare.
My heart was racing. I had witnessed the scene, not as some may say 'in slow motiuon', but in real time as a powerless witness, transifixed by the events that were unfolding in front of my eyes.
Shortly afterwards, Oliver pulled over for a pit stop and I asked him if he realised what had happened. "No, I didn't see anything", Well, I suppose it all happened behind him and I am glad he didn't see it; it was a close call. Apparently most serious accidents happen on minor country roads as people drive way too fast, taking risks they wouldn't on busier roads. With inevitable consequences.
We flew down a steep descent into Beddgelert and after asking for directions made the 'mother of all mistakes' as we continued to travel deeper into the heart of Snowdonia.
How to stop a flying German
We left Beddgelert in what I thought was a southerly direction. The lady who had told me the directions explained that the road was flat for around 4 miles and then it climbed a long way. She was right. Her directions were also correct. It was just that I had mistakenly asked her the way to Betws Y Coed.Which was not where we should have been going. Numpty.
We began a long climb (around 8 miles) past a lake and on to a long winding road that cut along the slopes of Snowdonia's finest scenery. A small waterfall cascaded down next to the road and the views were superb; especially as the weather had cleared and the rain stopped. It was steady climbing and with all the miles and 2 previous mountain ranges in the legs, the climbing was not uncomfortable. I had found a steady rhythm and a kindly gear (usually my lowest or second to lowest gear) and just plodded ever upwards.
Half way up the climb we stopped at a parking area and viewing point. We chatted to a Japanese family on holiday and proudly announced to them that 'that is where we are going - up there!'. In front of us and high above was a discernible line of vehicles crawling up a noticeably steep road to a high point that housed a small collection of buildings and the odd coach and minibus.
'Yep Oliver, that is where we are going, up there!'.
We left our Japanese friends and Oliver set off, Alberto Contador-like, to tackle the longest and steepest section of the day. I trailed behind in my Mark Cavendish 'can't climb, won't climb' style, constantly looking up at the huge mountain slope ahead and the road that kept heading for the clouds.
And then I reached a junction. An unexpected junction with a signpost.
'Hang on' I said and then I felt a sinking, sick feeling in my stomach. I think the next word was 'bollocks'. Excuse my French, but you'll understand why. The junction showed that we needed to commence our descent at this point and head towards Betws Y Coed.The left arrow on the sign pointed the way up, up, up to the high point and Llanberis / Caernarfon. Which is exactly where we didn't want to go. Caernarfon is where we had come from.
I could see Oliver's white rain jacket bobbing up and down as he climbed up the road, approximately 1km away. I tried to call him, but there was no signal. I half attempted to call him by shouting his name...but he would never have heard me. Now I had the prospect of cycling up this bloody road to try and catch up with him and tell him we'd made a big mistake.
Thankfully Oliver had taken to waiting at the top of most big climbs. I know he liked to watch me in pain struggling up the final few metres with a big smile waiting to greet me with 'This is great, we have no mountains where I live, I love the climbs...are you OK?...quick, have a drink, do you need a lie down'.
He was there waiting. There were quite a lot of other people waiting, most in walking boots and carrying backpacks. I asked a couple if they had a map I could borrow. They told me the news I had dreaded. Not only were we on the wrong route to the one I had planned, we had just cycled to the top of Llanberis Pass, the highest pass in Snowdonia. They and the other walkers were about to set off up the Miners Track to climb Snowdon.
Oliver was philosophical. "Well, at least we have cycled up to the highest point, this is GREAT!". I thought differently. My thoughts were, to use the words of Top Gear's James May, when faced by a problem or stupid mistake, 'Oh cock'.
We left Snowdon's hikers and began an extremely fast descent all the way to Betws Y Coed. I realised that this was my initial route before changing to our now redundant more southerly route. The new route was fine, but meant that we would have to spend most of the rest of the day on the A5, a road we had enjoyed / endured from Holyhead. But the A5 out of Snowdonia and down through Llangollen and on into Shropshire is notoriously fast and dangerous. But we had no choice now. A5 it had to be. Oh cock.
After a rapid descent to Capel Curig, we stopped to get directions at an outdoor clothing store. The two assistants in their twenties looked suitably impressed that we had cycled from near Caernarfon that morning. The young man (how old do I sound?) nearly fell off his stool when we told him we'd started in Worcester a little under 5 days ago and had since cycled all the way to Dublin. I was hoping for a brand new Goretex jacket as a token of the respect and esteem we were being held in. Instead they filled my water bottle up for free. Oliver's was still mysteriously almost full. How does he do that?
We then joined the A5 and kept its company all the way to Oswestry. The Vale of Llangollen is very picturesque and it wasn't too bad a road, except for the fairly regularly 'whoooosh' of a massive truck thundering past at 56mp/h. You first sense the huge presence of a juggernaut as it bears down on your rear wheel. You hear the heavy rumble of its engine in a low gear, itching to get past you. As it accelerates or you are passed at speed, you get a wallop of air in the back that can cause you to wobble, followed by a 'hole' in the air which is great if you are cycling into a headwind.
It was somewhere near Llangollen that my left knee started the first complaints and twinges that said 'alright boyo, that's about enough...I am a 42 year old joint and I shouldn't have to be subjected to this. Now can you just stop please?!' My knee was hurting, but the fact we were close to ridding ourselves of road signs that said 'Slow / Araf' and Police / Heddlu' and getting back to England made the pain tolerable.
Simon knows how to find the best places for R&R. He had parked the Ford Focus at an attractive and posh looking hotel, the Wild Pheasant, just on the edge of Llangollen. By now we had been cycling around 5 or 6 hours and the sun was out. In short, or more accurately, in Lycra shorts, we were hot, sweaty and decidedly not dressed to soil the plush sofas of a top end spa hotel. However, with the wit, charm and tact that he is renowned for, Simon sweet talked the receptionist into letting us in for a cup of tea and some biscuits. I think the use of the words 'cycling for charity' proved useful too.
A short time outside of Llangollen we approached a large roundabout and headed due south. The road signs indicated the way home...Oswestry, Shrewsbury. This was the A5 at its ugliest, noisiest and most frightening. By far the worst road we had been on with thousands of motorists in all manner of vehicles thundering up and down the dual carriageways. We were so concerned in getting off the A5 as soon as possible we missed the sign that said 'ENGLAND'.
Well, actually I stopped, briefly, wanting to celebrate the passing back into mother England pictorially. Not so my German friend. Oliver whizzed passed the Welcome to England sign without glancing up...Was this failure to stop and take my picture at the sign a case of 'schadenfreude' on Oliver's part? No, he was absolutely bombing it along the A5 in an effort to get off this hellish road as soon as he could. And I could understand why. There was barely a break in the fast flowing traffic and it felt as if we had joined the M5, not the A5. Thankfully a tiny B road blinked in yellow off my map and showed us the country route into Oswestry. All my educated life I have striven (yet failed) for 'A's...now I delighted in getting a 'B'.
Oswestry felt like the end of the day's ride. It wasn't. It was however, the location for a comedy scene. The German title for the film is something like;
Zwei Fahradder mit grossen Vesperboxen suche für GemächteTwo cyclists with large lunch boxes search for a lunch break
or possibly even 'Two cyclists with large lunch boxes look for penis'
Forgive my rusty German. It has been some time since I lived in Germany and spoke Das Lingo.
We had chanced upon Morrisson's supermarket. How I wish it had been Morrissey's, Shelves stacked with tea, digestive biscuits, DVD's of Coronation Street box sets, row upon row of vegetables, fruit and a security sensor that detected meat eaters and refused entry to them by whacking them on the head with a large organic cauliflower. The muzak playing mournful tunes 'I was happy in the days of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I'm miserable now'. What a shopping experience that would be. Would dear old Morrissey let two middle aged men in bottom hugging Lycra and pert nipples wonder around his supermarket in their helmets, stinking of sweet sweat and looking a little worse for wear? Probably not, but WM Morrisson is not so picky. Either that or the security were on a break.
We purchased beers (non alcoholic for me) and doughnuts and set off on the final ten miles to the campsite. We rendezvoused with Simon at a crossroads just over the border into Wales once more, before commencing the fastest 4 miles of the whole journey (on the flat, not downhill). Something was urging us to get to the campsite as fast as we could. What it was, was a fantastic campsite next to a brilliant pub that served wonderful food, Bier von Fass and convivial company. All 2 minutes walk from the tent. The Tontine Inn in Melverley and the campsite were the venue for our last night and they sent us to sleep content, intent to finish and in tents (admittedly Simon's had collapsed and he borrowed one from the campsite owner who happened to work in fisheries management and knew Simon's colleague...as Morrissey would sing 'Trout ticklers of the world, unite and take over').
Tomorrow would be our last day, the final 60 miles and the finish of an unforgettable trip.
Day 6: Melverley (nr Oswestry) to Worcester, approx 60 miles / 100km
The final day. a few more hours of pedalling, a few more hours of pitting one's endurance against the forces of nature; gravity, wind, flatulence and hearty lunches.
We woke to a fine day and a favourable wind. The wind had been kind throughout the trip and on this final day it blew extra hard against our backs and pushed us along at record speeds. There were still 60 miles or 100km to cover, but they felt insignificant in comparison to the 650km we had already completed. I knew that the terrain was hilly - again. This was Shropshire and the hills were sharp, steep, nasty little leg biters that hurt - but that didn't matter today. today was a celebration. Our equivalent to the last stage of the Tour de France, a triumphant procession into Paris (in our case Worcester), with thousands of cheering fans lining the road (in our case a confused collection of Worcester folk ambling past the cathedral).
We made excellent progress towards and skirting around Shrewsbury and began the cross country route over towards Bridgnorth. I had a dilemma to overcome. one that involved a particularly nasty climb up and over Much Wenlock, one of the steepest in the area. I rerouted the ride to avoid Much Wenlock. You may call it wimping out (fair enough), but you try cycling for 5 days, 650km and through 3 mountain ranges and ask yourself (your legs) if you fancy struggling up a particularly hard climb so near the finish. No, thought not. The look of disappointment on Oliver's face when I told him the news was enough to make me reconsider. He seemed genuinely crestfallen that we weren't going up a steep brute of a hill. But, I insisted, I will promise you something better....and it still includes a nasty climb. He seemed placated.
What was this promise? Well, considering I had never visited the world heritage site not 40 miles from my door, I thought it about time to rectify this and pay a long overdue visit to Ironbridge Gorge, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and a place without which, we wouldn't have been able to sit on machine crafted contraptions such as bicycles. We owed it a debt to say thank you for inspiring people to use metals and science to come up with inventions that allowed us the chance to get rubbed raw in the crotch sitting on tiny saddles, travelling the length and breadth of the British Isles for charity and pleasure.
Enough waffle. Basically it was a picturesque detour that took us through the gorge and past the famous bridge. It was a nice break in the journey and a chance to catch our breath before starting the long climb out of the gorge and heading for lunch at Bridgnorth. It was a marginally better option than Much Wenlock.
Had Much Wenlock not been so steep and unappetizing, I'd still not have been to Ironbridge.
We made good time and stopped for an early lunch in Bridgnorth. Now I really sensed we were close to home as I had cycled to and from Bridgnorth a number of times before. It was familiar territory. Lunch was demolished ravenously as our bodies had been so devoid of calories over the last 6 days they had begun to eat themselves. There are only so many gels and energy bars you can have before you start dreading the sickly goo in your mouth or the chewy nutty bars sticking to the roof of your mouth as you pant and heave up the 131st climb of the day.
We met Simon for lunch and prepared ride the last 30 miles to Worcester. As usual with any journey or tale, there is a sting in the tail....this time being the series of climbs out of Bridgnorth. They seemed to have lengthened since I last rode them. Oliver, for once, was quite surprised at their length and steepness. However, I knew that once we had passed into Worcestershire and shot down the hill at Shatterford into Kidderminster, we were but a couple of climbs away from smooth flattish cycling all the way to the faithful city.
Kidderminster to Worcester was exhilarating, not least because we could sense the finish line. The tail wind propelled us along at speeds of 25mp/h / 40kp/h; unheard of on the flat. The places and names grew more familiar as Ombersley came into view. As we exited the Claines roundabout, the city sign for WORCESTER beckoned us to dismount and take a well earned photo. 3 miles to the finish, back in the city of Worcester. Only the suburbs of Claines, Barbourne, then the Tything and the city centre to cover. The pain in my knee had been with me since starting that morning, but it was completely forgotten as we turned right onto London Road and finished the slight climb (what else?) for the final 200m to the cathedral.
Simon had gone ahead and picked up Rini and my Mum. Louisa and Milla arrived from school with our care workers Ruth and Kelly and we pulled over to cheers and welcome hugs.
We had done it. 750 kilometres in 6 days, 3 mountain ranges, torrential rain and heartwarming sun.
A personal goal had been achieved by both of us. It had been easy to talk about cycling to Dublin and back. The logisitics of the trip had been relatively easy to coordinate, if time consuming. However, the physical reality of pushing yourself to cycle day after day for 6 days, averaging over 100km per day through some of the most difficult mountainous regions in Britain and Ireland is something I had not experienced before. Oliver had done other long cycling trips, but I could see the sense of achievement in his eyes too (750km cycling ON THE LEFT OF THE ROAD!!!!).
However, the real achievement is the money raised for SCOPE. Over 4,000 pounds.
750km is a long way to travel by any means, let alone cycling. But it is nothing compared to the never ending road people living with disability have to travel their whole lives.
A few thank yous.
Oliver & Simon.
Oliver - thank you for agreeing to come along with me on the ride. I am glad you enjoyed the hills, as there were so many. You made cycling so far a pleasure and it was always a relief to see you waiting for me at the top of yet another hill, when I hadn't seen you for 20 minutes! I hope we have the chance to cycle together again in the future.
Simon - Passpartout Extraordinaire. Again you kept me in good spirits, well fed and watered and with a stoicism of epic proportions. Who else would have driven from Worcester to Brecon to Newport to Gloucester to Carmarthen in a day, without complaint?...Thanks mate, as always. One day I'll drive and you can cycle...but I won't drive a motorhome!
To all my supporters, sponsors and donors. You have been so generous, kind and supportive - not just this time, but since I began doing these fund raising challenges in 2007. Without you, the funds wouldn't be there for SCOPE to continue their excellent and important work. thank you so much.
Rini, Mum & Louisa
Always supporting me, always helping me in these crazy challenges and always there for me. Thank you, I love you!
Milla
You are my inspiration. You battle through so many difficulties and always emerge smiling. Despite all your physical problems you bring warmth to my heart and pleasure every day. I love you.
No comments:
Post a Comment