Day 375 (Saturday)

Wohhhoooooo I'm in Wales.

I didn't sleep to well, but did eat Spag Bol for tea, woke up far to early and set of from the hostel to meet Dave far to early!

I was supposed to set of at 9:30 and meet Dave at 10, I ended up setting of at 9 and we set of from his guest house at 9:30.

We headed out of Betws-Y-Coed on the A5 and the turned of onto country roads, the roads got steeper and steeper untill we reached at least a 1:4 gradient, I got a little way up it and ended up on the grass bank, so I stopped turned around then tried again, I ended up wheel spinning on the gravel in the middle of the road and again ended up cycling towards the grass bank, I gave it up as a bad idea and walked the 100 feet or so to the top of the gradient, feeling a little disappointed with myself :-(

That was the low point in the day and the steepest gradient! I battled and won on all of the other climbs :-)

Dave was pointing out all of the key mountains in the area, I was listening and taking it in (Honestly...But I have forgoten them all!)

The first stop of the day was after a 1170ft climb to Ogwen

At Ogwen we turned off of the A5 and did a massive drop on some single track lanes :-)

If you look into the distance you can still see the road way of into the distance :-)

At the bottom of the descent there was another photo opportunity :-)
There was more hill climbing,descending and wrong turns :-) At one point I saw a group of cyclists ahead and put on a turn of speed to catch up with them, only to end up disappointed at how slowly they were going!

The descent from Dinorwic was very interesting! on one steep down hill there was a sharp right hand turn, which I almost didn't!

We cycled up the Llanberis pass and stopped at the Pen-Y-Pas for lunch, I did get to the top first :-)

The downhill from Pen-Y-Pas was slowed due to a killing headwind!

At the bottom of the descent Dave was seen to be taking his jacket off again...I just kept mine on all of the time.

The views and scenery all day were stunning, the climbs were long and hard but very achievable. It must be noted that today I only achieved around 75 miles in 6 hours! I would normally be hoping to be doing around 100 miles in that time, 10 mile hills take a toll on the speed and energy!


The final climb of the day was up through Blaenau Ffestiniog and it was long, steep and bloody hard work! But again the view from the top was worth it and this time the down hill was with a tail wind :-) (Unfortunately still didn't hit my target 5o mph....only got to 47 mph)

The day was long, hard and tough but most definitely worth it!

Lessons learnt, cycling downhill on unknown roads can be very scary, the first major downhill stretch was on damp rural roads with moss growing in the middle I almost didn't make it to the bottom of the hill. The next rural downhill stretch had a very steep right hand corner, I almost ended up going straight on!!!! I can cycle almost all day uphill but if the gradient gets too steep I am defeated. Cycling downhill into a headwind can be as hard as cycling uphill. Unfortunately no matter how beautiful the scenery when cycling you miss most of it!

Thank you for your time and effort Dave... It was very much appreciated.

I may have still looked raring to go...but believe me I was knackered!

The cycle computer had today's ride as 75.34 miles in 5 hours 36 mins with an average speed of 13.4 mph and a new top speed of 47 mph

The RunGPS plot can be found here...

RunGPS had the total climb as 5114 feet with the minimum altitude at 183ft and the maximum altitude at 1405 feet.