Click here for Part 1

It’s probably worth just talking about the style of this ride. I’d chosen to ride totally self-supported. All my gear and food was either strapped to my bike or concealed in the back pockets of my riding jersey. I knew fairly well before setting out that I wouldn’t be able to do the whole ride without some rest, and so decided to pack a very lightweight bivy bag (Wasatch Bivvy – 105g), sleeping bag (PHD Minim 900 down bag – 363g). These were packed into a 2 litre drybag and strapped to the front of the bike in a custom Wildcat Gear Mountain Lion. The rest of my gear went into a Wildcat Gear frame bag, the majority of which was filled with food, but also a 3/4 length Thermarest NeoAir (which I admit was a bit of a luxury), a Gore Alp-X 2.0 jacket and some tools. The frame bag was cut around one 610ml bottle on the seat tube, which required me to keep a careful eye on my water intake and fill up whenever I saw the opportunity at a clear-running stream. So that was it. Everything neatly contained on my bike, and nothing on my back.

Up until now, I’d also been “flying under the radar”. I had a Spot tracker with me, but only Beth (my wife) knew where to look for progress updates. It wasn’t until a I sent out a few tweets at Dyfi Junction that I declared my intention to ride the double. But now the word was out, I was committed to getting to the job done.

Every joyful descent leading down to the Dyfi Junction became a painful climb to regain the higher elevations – they’re not called the Cambrian Mountains for nothing. Glaspwll track was a steady slog on foot; its gradient too steep for my 32:19 ratio and my already well-traveled legs. Once at the top, the grassy terrace was even more beautiful in reverse, and with the low sun now casting a warm orange cast over the landscape. However, this was soon forgotten when I reached the bottom of Foel Fadian. Its intimidating steep flanks rose up steeply to a crisp darkening sky. The push turned to a slog, and I would occasionally stop and look back to where the sun had been, but it didn’t diminish the effort required to complete the ascent. By the time I reached the top, it was properly dark and the temperature beginning to drop.

At the bottom of Y Grug, I stopped to fill my bottle up, drop in a caffeine tablet and put my jacket on to fend off the cold air. I certainly needed it for the fast descent that soon followed into Staylittle. Hafren Forest became a bit of a blur – straight forward climbs now required significant effort to get up. I was certainly starting to feel the effects of tiredness and fatigue. The yawns started to come, and so at the next opportunity to fill up with water, I put in two caffeine tablets. The result reminded me of Red Bull but without the fizz. I scoffed some chocolate down too to hopefully give me a bit of a kick.

After crossing the A44, there is a long and punishing climb into the forest where Nant Rhys bothy lies. I wasn’t far now from my opportunity to put my head down for some sleep. The caffeine tablets seemed not to be making much difference, and I could feel me head nodding while riding. I get off and push some of the upward bits – it was probably safer. Eventually, the top came, and I rolled wearily down to the bothy. I arrived at 00:50 am, 19 hours 20 minutes since leaving Knighton, and with 226 km on the clock. That was pretty much two thirds distance, and I was fairly well spent.

In the bothy, I quickly unrolled and inflated my mat, unpacked my sleeping bag, ate some more food and dusted the mud off my legs before setting my alarm for 05:00 am and crawling inside my bag to go to sleep. It didn’t take long. Minutes, probably. Somewhat annoyingly, I was awoken at 03:00 am by the other two people in the bothy (walkers) getting their gear together to leave. Who, on earth, goes for a walk at three O’clock in the bloody morning?! I imagine they thought much the same when I came in just two hours before.

Now awake, but still tired, I was paying the price for the few grams I’d attempted to save on my sleeping bag as I lay there feeling the cold. I semi-dozed for about an hour, not quite able to haul myself back out of my sleeping bag and head into the cold and dark to finish the rest of the ride. Eventually though, when I thought I could discern the faintest beginning of a dawn through the windows, I got up. By the time I’d packed up my gear and got on the bike again it was 05:00 am, so at least I was still a little ahead of schedule.

Its amazing how much of an effect only two hours sleep can have when you’ve been awake for over 20 hours. The first hill was conquered with comparative ease, though I had a acute sense it wasn’t going to last. At the next available water point, I filled up my bottle, poured in some Torq recovery powder and had breakfast on the roll down to Cwmystwyth. Here the climbing started again in earnest. The enjoyable rocky descent though the woods from yesterday became another long push. The lanes and wild double track that followed were noticeably more wearing that the outward journey, but I had the benefit of a stronger tail wind. To my fortune, overnight, the wind had turned from north east to westerly. Perfect.

I stopped again at my lunchtime stop from the previous day at Teifi Pools, this time for second breakfast at 7.30 am, though I can’t honestly remember what I ate or for how long I was there. The Claerwen track that follows works well from west to east and I felt I made some good time on this section to arrive at the bottom of the dam about an hour later. The sodden and broken byway beyond the dam hadn’t improved overnight, and to make matters worse my slow brain and slowing reactions weren’t making line choice any easier.

Back in Rhayader, the town was just getting going, though by most peoples measure was probably still half asleep. Clive Powell had got his bikes outside the shop, but I didn’t see anyone. I filled up at the tap again, hoping this would be the last time before the finish. I calculated it would be about 4 hours back to Knighton. On the road out of town, I did my mental fly-through of the rest of the route. I could recount all the bits, so I thought, but such fantasies make little allowance for gradient, which was brought home to me at the huge road climb that followed the A483 road crossing up to Fron Top. The section that followed over Warren Hill appeared to be missing from my mental image and for a while I struggled to work out where I was and what would come up next.

Familiarity returned when I reached the edge of the Beacon Hill track. I finished the last of my peanuts, swallowed a gel and ate some more chocolate. This was it. One hour to the finish, and with 400 metres of elevation under my belt, this was surely going to be easy. Wrong. Oh, how my body ached. My underside of my right foot was sore, my wrists ached. My shoulders were tense and jarred over every rock and rut. My right hip felt a bit tight too, but it seemed OK at turning the pedals at least. As a bumped my way down the descents, trying as best I could to take the smooth lines, I felt like I had lost all finesse. I felt like a passenger on the bike unable to anticipate and respond in time for the next obstacle.

At last, Knucklas. Tarmac. Smooth. Joy of joys. Three miles and one climb lay between me and the finish. I dug as deep as I could on what would have been a modest gradient on any other day. I rolled into Knighton, swept through the car park and onto the station platform. I got out my phone and took a photo, much to the bemusement of the women sat further down the platform waiting for the next train. I hit the OK button on my Spot to send out a pre-prepared message for Twitter to say that the Trans Cambrian Way Double was complete, and a link to the Spot page that had cataloged my progress to Dyfi Junction and back.

Back at Knighton

My time on the GPS said 14:03 pm, which meant I’d completed the ride in 32 hours and 33 minutes. Some 338 km of riding, and over 7,900 metres of ascent.

A very long way

I rang Beth to say I was finished, and within minutes of that, I got a text from Mark Goldie asking how it had gone (Mark holds the record for the TCW single). Soon after that messages came in via Twitter. The last 32 hours had been so solitary I was grateful of any sort of communication. I rode back to the car, changed and went into town or some food. Gradually the full sense of achievement dawned on me. As far as I know, no-one before me had ridden the Trans Cambrian Way Double as an Individual Time Trial, and even if (or when) the time gets beaten, I will always have been the first

I roll down the high street in Knighton early on Saturday morning. A nearly full moon is beginning to set in the south west, and the first light of dawn is beginning to show in the other direction. I pull up at the railway station, place my bike under the sign and take a photo.  Its 5.30 am. There’s only one ride that starts here: the Trans Cambrian Way. And for the first time, possibly, it’ll also feature as the end of the ride. Here is my account of the Trans Cambrian Way Double.

Knighton

The sun finally breaks over the horizon as I make my way over Beacon Hill. Skylarks burst into song overhead, and lapwings fly up around me. Further up the track, a hare dashes across my path and then reappears a little further ahead running in the same direction. No race today I’m afraid, Mr Hare. I’m reminded of the hare and tortoise story. This ride isn’t about speed as such, its about getting my body and my bike to the finish. And for at least the next 12 hours, I’ll be riding away from the finish.

The trails are good; the grass is still short after a hard winter, and although the ground is damp in places it doesn’t drag too much. I pick my way around some boggy bits that look like they never dry out, and wherever I can take the cleanest and smoothest line to reduce the impact on my body. With Beacon Hill and Bwlch-y-sarnau behind me, I roll into Rhayader. I fill my water bottle up at the tap beside Clive Powell Cycles, grab a couple of things to eat from my bag and roll back out of town. I elect to push the fierce tarmac climb up to Gro Hill, before enjoying the fast grassy descent to the western end of Caban Coch Reservoir. The trail, such as it is, continues south of the river that issues from beneath the Claerwen Dam: a rock strewn, eroded and waterlogged byway that has suffered beneath the wheels of countless motorbikes and off-roaders. I do my best to pick a line among the rocks and keep my feet dry around the waterlogged bits.

Claerwen Reservoir comes into view and I embark on the 10 mile ride that weaves along the northern shore. I’m grateful of a modest tailwind on some parts but the track changes direction to such an extent I sometimes find myself facing the cool northerly wind head on. At Teifi Pools I stop for a proper break, fill my bottle up, lube the chain and enjoy a bit of food in the sunshine. I also needed some music. Whilst I’m normally content to listen to the sound of the world around me, it was getting a bit monotonous; neither silence or noise – just the constant sound of nothing in particular, and it was getting a bit wearing.

The route continues over the top to Cwmystwyth via a mix of wild double-track, tarmac and some rocky woodland descent.  Eventually I regained the tarmac leading up the valley. Any respite offered by the smooth and gentle gradient was entirely countered by a headwind.

Along the road, I caught up a youngish chap on a touring bike. He starts to tell me how he’s doing a big ride to prepare for a tour of the UK later in the year, and then he looks at my bike, and particularly the gears. Singlespeed wasn’t a concept he’d encountered previously, and not one he could easily relate to.

You’ve got no gears!

Blaenycwm to Llangurig passed largely without any incident. The only thing to note was that somewhere along this section marked one third distance for the route. Onward into Hafren, I started to get the feeling that the end of the first half was coming to an end. I’d spent a lot of time studying the maps, and although not entirely familiar with every bit of trail on the latter part of the route, I could do a mental fly-through and recount all the key bits. The climb out from Staylittle was quite a stiff one, but with my focus increasingly on the diminishing distance to Dyfi Junction, I found renewed strength in my legs.

On the descent off Y Grug, I caught up two guys also doing the Trans Cambrian Way. We exchanged a few words, most of which were centered around how fast I appeared to be going and how little gear I had with me. I bid them well and disappeared off down the rest of the descent. After a short climb, and in order to stay completely faithful to the route took the bog trot instead of the nearby stone track before reaching the top of the Foel Fadian descent; a steep technical broken slab of rough rock, exposed, wet and fairly treacherous. I picked my way down it carefully, with only a couple of dabs but content not to have an incident.

I was within 10 miles of Dyfi Junction now, but the terrain was still complex and lumpy, and climbs seemingly unrelenting. Eventually one of the longer climbs finally gave way to a saddle along the ridge, and a picturesque view westwards down the valley to Glaspwll came into view. After rolling along a pleasant but slightly undulating grassy terrace, the track finally turned and plummeted down a into Glaspwll itself. A couple of kilometers of lanes and one more bridleway eventually brought me to the A487, and within a few minutes I was on the platform at Dyfi Junction.

Halfway

My GPS read 13 hours since I left Knighton, 11 hours 53 minutes of which had been spent riding. I was happy with that. I sat down for some “proper” food which comprised of chicken, nuts, welsh cakes, chocolate, recovery drink. But there wasn’t too long to sit around; it was past 6.30 pm, and I reckoned I had about 2 hours of light before full dark.

Dinner Time

Whilst Dyfi Junction is the end of the ride for most people doing the Trans Cambrian Way, I’d been preparing myself all day for the moment when I turn the bike around and ride back the way I came.

To be continued…

I’ve lost count of the number of days that have elapsed since I last rode my bike. Way back in August sometime, maybe, but I can’t be sure.

We’re having some building work done at home and earlier in the year when the specification was being drawn up I took out a series of items. Tiling? I can do that. New floor in the bedroom? Sure thing. Decorating? No problem. Well, the tiling is done (at last) and the floor down (finally). Decorating is still work in progress…

But, despite the unfinished state of things its all very live-able in and that means, rain or shine (rain most likely – looking at the forecast), I’m off for two days riding in an often overlooked bit of Wales that is Radnor Forest. The Radnor Ring is a Sustrans route of 80 odd miles of quiet country lanes. Between these, however, is a great network of tracks, bridleways and forest trails that I haven’t ridden for over a decade or more, and certainly never has a nice big loop with a night out under the tarp.

It’s also an opportunity to test out a couple of new bits of kit. Beth has finished a nice Clouded Leopard frame bag for me that fits around my water bottles and still gives me room for a tarp, bivvy bag, sleeping mat and a few other bits and bobs as well. It’s super light too, weighing only 150g.  With sleeping gear up front and food etc in a seat pack, I should have a total weight of around 4 kg with nothing on my back.

Wildcat Clouded Leopard

I’m also excited about my new tarp: 94g of cuben fibreness, this neat tarp is produced by z-packs in the US. Nearly half the weight of my siltarp, it should provide more protection from the rain and increased headroom allowing me to sit up out of the rain and eat my dinner.

Zpacks Hexamid Solo

I’m just glad to be going out on the trails, regardless of the weather, and quite excited about my new bits of gear. It’ll be a great way to end my abstinence from riding bikes.