Lon las Cymru: Day 2

Our last ditch, dusk camp location didn't actually look that bad in the light of day. After checking for livestock, we'd entered a small paddock, just off the lane, through an awkward wooden gate and closed it behind us and the bikes.

The wind battered us in the night but I did manage to grab about five hours, broken sleep. I'd woke at around 0300 with the trees above us swaying and opened my tent to find Chris awake. To save weight in his luggage, he'd opted for a tarpaulin sheet as a rain cover, a British army waterproof bivvy bag to sleep in and a roll-up foam ground mat. He gave me the time before I zipped up and dropped off again until about 0445.

The sound of Chris' Jetboil bubbling over, lured me from my pit. I imagined myself to look like something from Oliver Twist as I offered Chris some sugar with grubby fingers under my finger-less cycling gloves.

I examined my tent to find the reason it was sagging inside. In a cocktail of anger and tiredness the previous night, I had snapped one of the tent poles and pierced the nylon sleeve with the newly exposed, jagged aluminium. All was not lost as at the bottom of the tent bag was a small repair kit. Inside was a small collar that slides over the broken part of a pole, preventing it from breaking further.

We deconstructed the camp of doom pretty sharpish as a breakfast stop in the nearest town was the main topic of conversation. I sensed a better atmosphere as we closed the gate continuing along the lane with almost fresh heads.

We sacrificed seeing the birthplace of Laurence of Arabia in Tremadog, in favour of the seaside, castle town of Criccieth and the chance of breakfast. Criccieth was a sixteen mile detour back down onto the coast.

We arrived into our second castle town of the ride at speed. Last nights climb had left us with a nice decent to wake up to. However, we struggled to find anywhere to get a breakfast with it still being pretty early. Dishing out some chocolate fudge energy bars we decided to stop in Porthmadog further along the route. We took some time in Criccieth to enjoy the quiet and the seaside vista, before heading up again, past the castle and out of town.

The climb out of Criccieth took us into the village of Llanystumdwy via the grave of David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister during the first world war.

Porthmadog was a welcome break. We arrived at around 0920 and the sun was already beating down. We destroyed a breakfast and chatted with a local taxi driver over coffee about push bikes with motors on! It was worth the early start to be able to sit for a while, in the sun, people watching on the outside seating.

We found a supermarket where we could replenish the brew kit, fill the bottles up and off-load some litter for the next leg. I slapped some sun block on my knees, forearms and nose and waved goodbye to Porthmadog feeling like a new man, albeit a hot one!

The escape out of Porthmadog took us to an estuary where an impressive carving of Prince Madog stood tall, looking West out to sea. It is believed Madog discovered North America in 1170, over three-hundred years before Columbus' voyage in the 1400's. There is evidence of Welsh speaking Indians and caves clad with Welsh style stonework, not accustomed to the native American people at that time.

We blitzed the next fifteen miles, pedalling at a good pace into Harlech, our third castle town. We didn't plan on stopping, only the view looking back to where we started was too tempting to ride past.

We chatted for a minute and counted on one hand the people on the beach below. It wasn't long before we stopped again. Our tyre melting arrival into Harlech had caused Ziggy to pick up a slow puncture on his back tyre. We pulled in at a junction and commenced the repair job on the grass verge. A lady who lived nearby had seen us and came out to offer to fill our bottles up. We thanked her as we were still pretty heavy on water. So far, everyone we met had been really happy to see us out and about and were genuinely intrigued about our travels.

With a new inner tube fitted and no visible damage to the tyre, we picked up the pace again flying down to Barmouth, before heading inland following the Mawddach trail.

Barmouth would be our last coastal town and the next time we would see the sea would be in Cardiff. We cycled over the famous Barmouth train bridge and followed the flat trail along the banks of the river Mawddach estuary.

We'd read about this river trail beforehand and it didn't disappoint. A shaded, flat, gravel track for about seven miles, flanked by Coed y Brenin forest and following the natural beauty of the shallow river inland. Some cows were grazing in the shallow salt marshes and we picked out Egrets, Herons, Cormorants and Lapwings on the sand.

After just over an hour on the trail we came to the old train station of Penmaenpool. The station itself is now an ideally located pub; George III, right on the waters edge and the cycle route. All the old signal boxes and lights remain, making it an interesting stop for a cider and blackcurrant!

We took it in turns to mind the bikes/cool our legs off in the shallow water, which was now freshwater in the gentle tidal current heading back out to Barmouth.

All good things must come to an end though and as the pleasant, river trail died off, we found ourselves back in the country lanes after passing through Dolgellau. This was where my geographic knowledge of the country began to fade. New counties and town names on signs whizzed past us as we navigated mid-Wales. I've hiked most of North Wales and Snowdonia but never really headed much further South. With new places came a new vigor. I felt like a kid again, when we would jump on the bikes and head off to explore somewhere new, without a care in the world.

Unlike when I was ten, I did have a few cares. My backside was starting to feel uncomfortable in the saddle and I'd picked up a bit of sunburn on my arms that was rubbing on my jersey. There was also a whirring noise coming from my back tyre. I called "portage!!" to investigate.

The rain cover that I'd removed from my rucksack and used to wrap my tent and sleeping bag up in, had slipped through the rack and was rubbing on the tyre. Not fancying bursting into flames or flying over the handlebars, I secured it again, applied some chamois cream to my tender derriere and swapped my short sleeve jersey for a lightweight, long-sleeved one.

We now faced a tough climb away from Dolgellau up a winding mountain track. The sweat was pouring from me as I abandoned the sitting position and stood up to pedal. Chris, the better climber of the pack, was way out in front still seated. A relentless climb, every corner we reached, the hill just turned and kicked on again. Plenty of false summits did nothing for our moral as the late afternoon tiredness began to creep in again.

After about an hour we reached the top and were rewarded with a special view back over the Rhinog mountain range, which we had just passed over. We stopped a while to catch our breath and to read some of the cycling club stickers that adorned the steel farmers gate at the top.

A rapid descent took us through the picturesque, tiered village of Corris. Window boxes of colourful, summer flowers lined the terraced, hilly streets. Beer garden dwellers waved as we passed a pub. We continued through the neighbouring villages of Esgairgeiliog and Pantperthog before arriving in the larger town of Machynlleth.

It was here we needed to make an important decision. Machynlleth, geographically, sits in a bowl. The only way out is to climb. And not just any old climb, this would be the toughest of the entire ride taking us to our highest point of elevation at almost 1500ft. It is regarded as one of the most difficult ascents in the UK amongst the cycling community.

We could either set up camp in Machynlleth and tackle the climb first thing in the morning or attempt the climb immediately, allowing us a nice descent in the morning.

After a short debate, we all agreed, even to our own surprise, that we would have a crack at the hill.

We ploughed some sugar into our systems at a petrol station in town and with no time to waste, attacked the incline. My legs were hurting now and I knew this was going to be tough. No matter how much weight I tried to shed from my luggage, it didn't make any difference. This was brutal.

To add to the difficulty, it was now late evening and the entire cast of A Bug's Life came out to play. Like a swarm of bees I had a cloud of midges around my head and the occasional persistent horsefly, intent on drawing human, sugary blood brought out some obscenities that I didn't know I had in me!

I jumped off the bike and reached for the Jungle Formula insect spray, covering myself in the vile, sticky spray - which worked for all of three minutes. I used the stop as an excuse to let the lactic acid fade in my legs whilst I checked some stats on Strava. It brought a wry smile when I read the segment we were on was called 'The moped staller'!

About a third of the way up I turned to the setting sun to see how much light we had left, not much. However, unlike the previous night where I had let it get to me, I tried to enjoy the orange glow of the sky as the sun disappeared over the hilltops.

My legs were now bordering on paralysis as the threat of cramp was present with every stroke of the pedals. I just waited for the bite. A number of cars that passed us on the way up gave us honks of encouragement as we must have looked like we needed it.

Almost two thirds of the way up, myself and Ziggy had lost sight of Chris. Demoralised and having to switch the bike lights on, we both agreed that we would stop over the brow in front of us and try to find somewhere to sleep. Arriving at the brow, the hill plateaued and Chris was sitting in a small passing place on the side of the road. He had the same idea as us and at seventy-three miles, 6300ft of climbing and nine hours in the saddle, we collectively called it a day.

We hopped into a field parallel with the road and dropped down slightly out of sight of any passing vehicles. I was so exhausted I could have slept on a clothes line, so the fact I managed to set up camp without any hiccups was a dream. Again, I opted out on the airbed as the pitch was on a slight incline and I didn't want to be sliding around all night. I hand-washed my sweaty gear with some bottled water and pegged them out to dry on a barbed wire fence in front of my porch.

Ziggy crashed out straight away and I didn't blame him. Myself, pissed off at not getting a proper camp experience on the first night, fired up the stove and lapped it all up.

I sat with Chris under his tarp, with a pouch of porridge and a hot brew. The sun, long gone had painted the sky a dark orange and we watched it turn purple, marveling at the stars in a light pollution free sky before hitting the sack at just after midnight.

I was going to be destroyed in the morning but I didn't care, the legs would still hurt and I would still be tired regardless of how much sleep I got, so I resisted the temptation of sleep just to stare at that skyline for a little longer...