Wild Weekend In Wales -Day 2 - The Wall, Afan
Waking very early in the morning and still hearing the sound of the rain on the roof top was a little disheartening to say the least. Tom will ride in anything, but I knew both Mark and myself, neither was keen or enthusiastic about starting this wet, knowing it was a long ride initially to the start of The Wall ride in Afan.
Luckily as dawn approached, the rain ceased and although breakfast was an unhurried affair, we were all keen to ride.
The weather felt cold and damp as we sorted our kit and our bikes... with the 3 of us having to put on the cold shoes and body armour from the day previously ridden.
Not deterring us, we finally set off, with the company of Sparky to The Wall. The long tarmac, old railway line, gave us much opportunity to chat and get to know one another.
On reaching a split off, Sparky decided to take the hard route up and meet us further up the top and we continued on the marked fire road.
This ride has a long meandering ascent on fire road, split up with small sections of single track. The rain from the previous night didn't seem to affect the ride too much so far, as we were quite surprised on how firm under rubber the terrain was.
We met up with Sparky once again as we continued on our way.
The spurts of single track on this ride are fantastic, chances of rock kickers, small jumps, twists, turns and hold your breath moments on all the descending parts... holding on and feeling my bike move beneath me, felt as though this was what I was born to do... but after Piccadilly, my bike began to feel as though something was wrong, as did Mark's. He had lost all rear braking power on his retro Marin and my front brake lever was pulling in way to far, giving me cause to loose my confidence. Not much could be done with Mark's predicament but my lever was wound out to allow room for my fingers.
After a breather and a gel, we were on our way... Sparky had already gone on ahead and we were to meet up later.
The Graveyard and The Final Descent were absolutely awesome... Extremely wet and precarious in places... even so, I don't think I have ever descended so fast before. My forearm pump keeping me hanging on to my grips and my timely learnt use of my brakes, each jump, twist and rumble was more fun and adrenalin flowing than words can describe... Except to say, I want to do again!!!
Once more, we all were left grinning like Cheshire cats... We all rode so well together, our words flowed and mirrored one another's as we again talked about the ride... 2 down, one to go, although we did think we would maybe do a single drop in on White's before the day was through.
We caught up with Sparky as we made for the Drop Off. On returning with us and sitting chatting, he then decided to ride Penhydd, but changed his mind as a gauntlet was thrown to do White's in under 1hr 30minutes.
Café to Café, Mark_2 returned in 1Hour 23minutes, although his timing from gate to gate was 1hr 17minutes.
Respect to Sparky for this time achieved, as he looked knackered and in pain. On completion, he had an off and hurt his ribs.. but hey, we were in Wales and staying, so chill time to come with no drive home.
Shower, dinner, more beer and laughter... more riders staying at the B&B and Day 3 yet to come.... Bring it on!
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed