At last, a proper ride…
…well the weather held out in South Wales, and a great ride resulted.
There are some great climbs in the Rhondda, in 65 miles I easily got over 2000 metres of climbing. I can’t wait for the longer, warmer days so that I can get up into the Beacons to extend this loop to an imperial century.
My climbing started with Glyneath Bank, a nice mile or so of 6 – 7% with lots of little waterfalls to the right to make it interesting.
Maerdy mountain was snowy and misty, and the first couple of bends at over 15% always make it a daunting climb, but the ride back down toward Treorchy is great, if not a little scarey, as you don’t get much time to decide if the corners are just wet, or icey!
I always forget about the climb up from Tylorstown to Penrhys as it is not a mountain climb, but at about a mile or so at or around 15% for most of it, it really does demand more respect than I ever remember to give it.
The last mountain climb was the Bwlch from the Treherbert side which is a nice long open climb that looks and feels quite alpine with the slopes stacking on top of each other above you. It’s mostly around 7%, but fairly long, especially when you reach what looks like the top only to have to take a sharp right to add another 1/2 mile of climbing to reach the real top. It was lovely and snowy up there, which just added to the alpine feel.
To finish off with I had the brutal but short Efail Fach climb out of Pontrhydyfen, and then a great descent down the Cimla, made better by overtaking a car that had pulled out on me near the top irritatingly. Her face was a picture as I went past at 40mph on the bends!
To think that in years gone by I used to miss all this in favour of MTBing in the Afan trails, the roads are so much more fun round there…