Day 376 (Sunday)

Woke up bright and early and went for a nice walk around Penmachno, the sun was up and it was already warm :-)

Along the way we came across a slate fence, slabs of slate were slotted end on into the ground, the whole idea of it intrigues me :-)

When we got back to the hostel I got my bike from the secure lockup and got ready to go to meet Dave...I was attempting to look as cool as possible :-)

I eventually met up with Dave at about 9:15 and we set of on a nice 20 mile very rural ride :-)


The first stop was at the end of a really long climb to a lake at Llyn Crafnant

Dave insisted on taking a picture of me to obscure the scenery...

On the climb to the lake we passed a Billy Goat in its home, we stopped on the descent to take a photy....

Dave Awarded me the Billy Goatie of the Mountain award....I think he may have been impressed with my ability to climb the mountains yesterday...and again today....(We don't talk about 1:4 and greater....)


After the descent it was a right turn then up another hill, then the road started to get green with moss and there was a 1:7 sign, the hill went up and it was easy enough, then it went round a corner and went up steeper (Definitely NOT 1:7) I managed to keep going for a few more feet then I was not overcoming the pedals anymore and I gave in and walked!....

The real shocker here is.........so did Dave! (And he wasn't just being nice to me....the Hill defeated him to!.....)

At the top the roads started to get VERY rural....But still in better condition than many of the Wiltshire 'A' roads!

We then started the descent to the second lake stop at Llyn Geirionydd

The roads were fantastic and the scenery was wonderful.

We then came back to the Hill that defeated me yesterday, but this time it was a descent, I did stop to take a photo of it, but the gradient just does NOT show on a photograph.....So have this picture of Dave instead....

The descent back to Betws-Y-Coed was much faster for Dave than it was for me....I remembered the gravel and slippery surface of yesterday and hence was braking for most of the downhill (Good job I have a stock pile of Shimano 105 brake blocks now!)

The Cycle computer had the ride as 21.01 miles in 1 hour and 40 minutes with an average speed of 12.5 mph.

The RunGPS plot can be found here...

RunGPS had the ride as 1606 ft climb with min altitude at 199 ft and a maximum altitude at 988 ft.

We left Wales at 11am :-( and had a roast lunch in a pub on the way home :-)

I had no knee problems at all over the weekend :-) unfortunately when I got to Chepstow the driving was giving me some knee agro! (Not sure if it was the clutch action or the lack of movement after the morning cycle?)

When I got home I realised the best course of action to free it all up was to go for a cycle ride :-)

So I donned the cycle gear and went for a nice easy 'normal 20' ride. The hills seemed like nothing now! Ohhh how my perceptions have changed!

The cycle computer had the ride as 21.51 miles in 1 hour 14 min with an average speed of 17.3 mph

The RunGPS plot can be found here...

When I got back home all knee aches had stopped :-) and I set about cooking the evening meal...

This weekend was a fantastic experience, I am looking forward to my next mountain ride :-)

Thank you Dave for your time and effort this weekend. It was greatly appreciated.

And if there wasn't enough interesting glossy things to see in this weekends bloggage....have a look at this video, the guy is mad!