Something, clanking, this way comes.

I felt the urge to do a little more writing on this blog that is mainly unrelated to the subject of touring. My bike, on Saturday, showed itself to have developed a problem of unknown origin that caused a strange feeling of shame in me as I cycled towards Bristol centre that day.
Having investigated the rear of the bike repeatedly, at intervals of roughly twenty feet, I came to the conclusion that whatever the problem was, it was unlikely to be solved by staring at it in frustration at the side of the cycle path.

I had a strange thought that, when combined with my reading of a possible inclusion in my dissertation for this year, The Sadeian Woman, induces a mildly philosophical feeling. Why is it that I seem to anthropomorphize my bicycle to the extent that my feeling of shame, associated with the conspicuous clanking of a seemingly serious fault, is more associated with the feeling that I am somehow broadcasting my misuse of my mode of transport?
I felt, to put it plainly, that I'd been neglectful of a creature I am duty-bound to care for and that the noise it was emitting was simply a cry to others of my mistreatment. When I think about this logically, it seems like a very strange thing to feel!

Anyway, having also been watching David Starkey's Monarchy, Episode 2, I'm feeling strangely eloquent. I best, for that reason only, retreat into my reading again before somebody gets the impression I'm well-read or something similar.

ps. I'd very much like to know how to change the time on blogger. It's 6:40pm. 

Day 2: water water everywhere...

The next day that dawned was unremittingly wet. Having expected us to get up somewhat earlier than we actually did, I got some reading done this morning. However, having lain inactive during the (as I found out) only dry part of the morning, we got up to dress and pack up in a steady drizzle that didn't end until we went inside for breakfast. I'm ashamed to say that, being completely unused to camping and moving on, I was somewhat useless in terms of packing up.

Having returned from the shower to find that Dan had mostly packed up the tent and the tarp and put the panniers on the bike and done our dishes, I sheepishly went to put away the fire-tray and we left, soggy and a little the worse for the late night 'marshmallowing'.

We headed first into Brecon to get food (of which we ate much) and finally rolled out of Brecon at past 2pm: somewhat of a late start considering the distance we had to travel. During our meal, we left the bikes outside the cafe. Dan's bike was the subject of many stares, and we had a good giggle at how many people seemed to walk around it, hands on their chins, muttering.

We were heading for Llanidloes, which was a good-sized portion of our Wales distance and a not-too-ambitious ride. Soon enough though, it became evident that the rain with which we had begun the day was not going away.

We came to the highest point on the journey so far, Dan resolutely taking pictures of me following him up the 16% gradient hill preceding it.

 Me, heading up the hill. 

...and still heading up the hill. Sadly, the camera doesn't really show the steepness as much as I'd like. 

  
At the top of the climb, was mainly flat but very very windy. Dan's flag, as you can see, is fluttering madly. 

As I said, it was also very wet.

While stopping to take the above pictures, I donned my waterproof jacket to prevent the wind freezing me, and we began the descent. Dan didn't think I was going fast enough, I think. To me, a windy road on a steep downhill with no barriers nor windbreaks of any kind, warrants extra caution on the corners. He, on the other hand, silently overtakes me on the right-hand bends... 

We followed the cycle route down many obscure and winding lanes after this point, always looking out for the route 8 signs. The search reminds me somewhat of the novel, Kushiel's Dart, where following a Tsingani (traveller) route through the countryside involves such direction markers as bent twigs sticking out of grass verges. True to previously settled form, the signs were rarely more than a simple sticker of a red square with the number eight in it, pasted onto any convenient post, and rarely contained any more detail than that. We discovered the unforeseen issue with this slightly later in the trip. 

We had just (so we thought) got to around the middle of the maze of single-lane B-roads south of Rhayader when we came across the, now much talked of, 'Ancient Coach Road'. Little did we know that, although it began simply as a gate with a muddy track behind it (of course, labelled with simply an eight), it was set to be one of the most time-consuming and difficult portions of our whole journey. We soon found that, after having to jointly push Dan's bike up the hill because the mud was too deep for him to cycle it, the road was simply a set of three, often very deep, ruts which gave way intermittently to very bad, rocky road surface that happened to be periodically bisected by streams with steep, near foot-high banks on either side. 

This stretch of track could not have been much over four miles long, which is barely fifteen minutes of cycling for me on a road with good surface and no mountain. This stretch took us much longer than we had anticipated. Dan's panniers kept beaching on the grass either side of the ruts, and he was having quite a bit of trouble with the rocky terrain. I got off relatively easily, carrying less weight. It wasn't the most cheery of journeys, especially in the pouring rain. 

 It was so wet that we couldn't take clear photos, because Dan's camera lenses were steaming up. 

 We stopped at a couple of points along this stretch for snacks, and made liberal use of the biltong and marzipan.

We finally arrived at the end of the track, at close to 7pm. We had lost near two hours of our journey for want of a good road surface, and wisely determined to stop at the next accommodation that we came across, rather than travel on to Llanidloes at such a late hour to camp. We found one place on our route that advertised accommodation, but didn't actually provide it. Luckily, after another hour or so of cycling, we finally reached Rhayader and got a room at The Elan Hotel. It was still pouring with rain as we hauled ourselves indoors, apologetically covered in mud. 

Our stay there was perhaps the nicest part of our whole day. They were very friendly and accommodating, and offered a locked shed in their car park for the storing of our bicycles, and some very tasty food.

We, after a very quick wash and change, a good meal and a chance to dry off, went to bed in much more comfort than we had anticipated at any point during the day.

Day 1 (or day 10): A Beginning....

I'm back from the trip now. I had intended to blog this consistently, but I had not really contemplated that it would bee quite so difficult to get wifi or 3G connection. That said, here it is.

This is our route. Dan tells me that this is not the route we took, but since I remember what it looked like, rather than its shape on a map, this will have to do unless he improves on the detail.

We had some bike troubles on the night that I arrived at Dan's house. These were not troubles with my bike, of course, but with Dan's. His stand was almost completely seized and rather wobbly; we were up until late making sure everything worked, and pulling like crazy at the giant alan key.
Eventually, it was fixed, and the morning was spent packing with this result:

 The first view of the duck-related articles.

To my lasting shame, Dan's version is entirely more impressive than mine. Sadly, he was to be proved right in that it would be much quicker if I were to carry nothing but emergency gear. My pack consisted of a set of lights, my wet weather gear, a set of dry base layers, arm and leg warmers and my fleecy-snuggly softshell. In short, it boiled down to this: 

Well, soon enough we were on our way. Our trip that day was Route 47 of the National Cycle Network, for the most part.The track was good in the beginning, but punctuated by very awkward access controls that seemed to get narrower and more awkward as the day progressed. It was not long after these had taken a turn for the muddy-and-awkward that we came upon an unusual little teashop where a very kindly gentleman was good enough to bring us tea through his stable yard.

 Dan, map-reading at the cafe.

 Dan's bike in the stable-yard.

After this pleasant stop we were warned vehemently by a young boy, who was travelling with his father, about the following 'Hump-Backed Bridge of Hell' and subsequent huge hill. The bridge section certainly deserved the warning, as it was situated at the very bottom of a steep descent and would almost certainly have caused me to flounder on my still-fresh SPD's (my disengagement was still a little uncertain). Luckily, with warning, we survived its almost legendary hump.

The following climb was possibly the only one that we had to do entirely on foot, as someone had (unwisely, I may add) decided to insert steps onto a steep and winding hill and leave a narrow gutter-track to the side of the steps for the wheeling of bicycles. This proved highly inconvenient with Dan's full touring load and required a good deal of joint manual handling in order to get it around the corners. Regrettably, we've no pictures of this, being simply too frustrated by the time we got to the top to bother taking any. 

The next stage of the journey was speedy and relatively uneventful. We were mostly on railway-path route from that point onwards, with only the regular addition of access controls too narrow to fit our handlebars through to break up the otherwise speedy progress. A stop of few minutes on a viaduct near to Methyr Tydfil supplied some gorgeous views and the nomming of snacks. 

On the onward journey, in our search for helpful meals, we stopped at a lovely narrow-gauge railway station where a steam train was being set up for its journey. Unluckily, the cafe contained no promising or substantial food. We did however manage to get some lovely pictures of the process.

Me, heading off to try to find food.

The steam train getting its dosage of (Dan assures me) water.






After this, we got into the Brecon Beacons proper, which happened to contain some stunning views, exhausting climbs, and missing signposts. We did get lost at a few of the junctions, the signs for Route 8 that we were following being either conspicuously absent, or misleading (I shake my fist at SusTrans). We were running late by the time we took these photos, having finally found the proper route on our most major misstep.

 Badly-surfaced path, "woo touring-load!"

A nostalgic snapshot for Dan, of the very area that he and some friends 'camped' on on a previous trip to the Beacons. 

We had a brilliant descent off the mountains on a path just technical enough to be fun for me and challenging for Dan on his fully-laden bike, and finally rolled into Brecon in a tired but confused state to find the campsite that I had booked. It was everything we had hoped for, and after a dinner of seasoned cous-cous and eggs, we settled down to our log fire and a whole big bag of marshmallows.

Our yummy dinner (that Dan cooked, for the most part).  
I had bargained with the owner for half a dozen eggs and a slightly wrinkly red pepper. 

 Me, helping the fire to become blazey...

Mmmmm, marshmallows... 

Needless to say, we were up rather late....