The Big Welsh Ride

Setting off from Holyhead at 7am for a long ride ahead of us. Good spirits as it is not raining (yet)

Greg just completing a pretty long hill climb.

Day 1 lunch stop in Snowdonia.

We are riding here up a tractor path over these mountains. Very steep and very long. End of day 1 so all pretty tired also.

Leaving Reditreks after 1st night.

Top of the mountain. About 600 meters high. Very long and very steep. Not recommended for the light hearted.

Nearly in Newport. Just completed 200 miles.

What's The Big Welsh Ride all about?

Well for Macmillan Cancer Relief we decided for some reason it would be a good idea to cycle the length of Wales. 200 planned miles in 3 days. This is how it panned out.

Day one

Average speed of 12.67 MPH. Day one 7 hours 30 mins of riding and covered 95.16 miles. Was a mix of the A roads coming out of Holyhead then after about 40 miles we went off road. The hill climbs were big but some fantastic down hills. Max speed of 36 MPH. Was pretty fast because a lot of the paths were very windy.

First half of the day it was raining for most of it, but in the afternoon it brightened up thankfully and we dried out. We wanted to pack in maximum miles to make the rest of the trip seem shorted. Best to take advantage of the fresh legs and at the end of 95 miles we were all feeling pretty worn out. The sensible thing that night in Heol Powys, Machynlleth, Powys, would be to have had some food and then gone to sleep, but instead we went to the pub and drunk a mix of cider, lager, vodka. Nothing that a big pre ride fry up in the morning didn't sort out cooked to the wonderful tones of the fire alarm that we set off and couldn't work out how to stop. We had the entire hostel to ourselves called Reditreks ideal for cyclists.

Day 2

Day 2 we cycled 48.12 miles over 4 hours 22 mins averaging 11 mph. This included cycling over a mountain that even cars were struggling up in first gear. The first 8 miles took about 1 and half hours. It was pretty much as tough as road cycling gets. Some fantastic views almost made the big climb worth while and the hangovers didn't help get to the top. The ride down however was a different story. 41.5 mph top speed and about 3 miles of constant down hill was absolutely fantastic. We shot straight past a view spot, but weren't stopping for anything. In the afternoon myself and Ger lost Greg. While we were waiting for him we could hear shouts from the other side of the valley. Somehow we had missed the signs but Greg didn't. We cycled back to meet Greg but he had cycled off, and the next hour we were playing 'find Greg' and entertaining the locals with war cries echoing off the mountain sides. That night we stopped in Builth Wells. We drunk too much once again. Luckily the latest we could get a taxi was 10:30 otherwise I think we would have ended up doing karaoke with the locals. By the morning we were all feeling like s**t. Made it all a bit more of a challenge!

Day 3 we planned to do the final 67 miles on the main roads to make things quicker, less hilly and try and pick up an acceptable average speed. We managed to hit our target of 15 mph average and cycled the 67 miles in just over 4 and a half hours. This meant that we had plenty of time to spend the afternoon sun drinking cocktails at Ger's house before going out in town and drinking to a point where non of us can really remember what happened. All I can say is I am glad we don't have to ride today. Yesterday was sunny all day, hardly any clouds. Today is raining loads, and the hang over is even worse than the previous 2 nights!

Sound tough to you? Feel free to sponsor us

So what next? Lands End Road to John O' Groats 2006. 833 miles. Who's in? View the map.