Month: September 2020

Another easy day. Being the weekend, I wanted to have a look around Camarthen rather than just shoot through for a much harder, longer journey.

That’s not really a holiday.

So here I am in Camarthen. Only took one picture on the way down.

It’s this one.

Speed was up. Did more miles today in 1 1/2 hours less, time-wise. Just shows what a waste of time yesterday was.

Excess luggage

Here’s a picture of my bike. Maybe you can see what’s slowing it down.

Continue reading “Day #7: Milton Haven to Camerthen”

Thought about cycling to St. David‘s on the Pembrokeshire peninsular.

After reviewing prevailing weather conditions on the METoffice app, and knowing that Google said it added 3 1/2 hours to the 3 to get to Milford Sound. When the time came to set off, I set the destination for Milford.

This was without doubt the best decision of the day and I felt thankful for making it as I climbed and descended hills into 28mph headwinds.

The journey to Milford Sound

It took 4.5 hours. I really can’t say I enjoyed any of it. I just wanted to be in Milford, off my bike and out of the wind.

Didn’t really have a lunch stop, as I assumed I’d be in Milford for mid-day. Instead, lunch was few handfulls of peanuts and a snickers bar outside a church.

A lot of the day was spent crossing lowland pasture land, moorland and a very small amount on the coast.

Continue reading “Day #6: Llechryd to Milford Haven”

Sort of close to Cardigan.

Day of hills

According to Strava, I’ve ascended the equivalent of Ben Nevis today, around 4,500ft.

It certainly felt like that. Heavy trunk routes, endless traffic, hills and noise were all too apparent in their absence, and that was only in the last 5 miles.

Angry brummie

After that day of tireless effort, what could be better than being greeted by an angry Brummie proprietor, initially a little annoyed because you’d arrived 10 mins before check-in.

Continue reading “Day #5: Machynlleth to Llechryd”

Without doubt the best day by any metric.

Start the day at Celtic Hotel

With a full breakfast, but hang on, can you squeeze a continental in there too? Hell, let’s do both. Alpen, milk, fruit, honey, full breakfast, coffee, fruit juice, toast.

The full hit. Some of the other guests weren’t impressed by the amount of food that was put on for me, I could tell by the looks I was getting. In Caernarfon terms, the Celtic is fairly high-brow. F*ck them.

Ate it all apart from 2 rounds of toast.

I’ve said this before. If you want to start the day full of exercise, the best way to start it is with fructose, that’s fruit. It goes into the blood stream quickest and will give you the greatest start for the least effort in energy terms. In addition, you need a heavy dose of carbs, these are absorbed slower and will release energy further into the day at a steady pace. Any fatty food is no good IMO, it bloats you, slows you down.

Generally the full-breakfast ain’t as good as the continental for the best start for a cyclist.

Must have been a particularly low in fat full breakfast because it didn’t bloat me or slow me down at all.

All in all, the perfect start to the day! I felt right till I got to Harlech!

The sun is shining!

Shocker…

That bright blue orb, sorry yellowish orb we call the ‘sun’ was in the sky.

Even thought it was cold, at 9am when I got going, the sun was out!

Not only that, there was very little wind!

Magic!

Continue reading “Day #4: Caernafon to Machynlleth”

Believe it or not; 1st proper day of cycling.

Although it was a short one. I was finished by about 3pm. It was the first day I’ve been able to get some speed up without having wind, or rain, or both blasted in my face for 5 hours.

The absence of these two blessed features made me feel a lot better, and it’s the first day it’s actually felt nice.

Windy hiller

Wind is like carrying rocks around. Any momentum is destroyed. All your efforts to move at a reasonable pace are…… destroyed…. It’s like the worst for a cyclist aside from hail and snow and winter stuff.

Today it was relatively lacking.

Accommodation problems

When I reached the destination property which was on a holiday home park called Glan Gwna Holiday Park, I suspected there might be problems as I reached the chalet and it had washing hanging outside. Pairs of jeans, frocks, towels, etc. Normal everyday wash as it looked like.

Continue reading “Day #3: Holyhead to Caernarfon”