What a great ride I had
What a great ride I had yesterday, which took me out via Swansea and over the Black Mountain – this is such a nice a climb, mostly around 7% but the wind can make that feel a bit harder. The descent down the other side is fast and long, which has you keeping up with the cars for a good few miles.
On to Llangadog is a nice flattish run, but the road surface is awful, and has your arms falling to sleep due to the constant vibration. I caught up with another rider, a retired guy on a lovely custom-built road bike of the early 80’s, and I rolled along chatting to him until Llandovery, where we went our separate ways.
From Llandovery it is a long drag, it must be around 10 miles, of constant uphill drag to Sennybridge. It’s rarely over 3%, but it does start to get pretty taxing. the upside is the view is stunning.
From Sennybridge the route starts to turn back toward home into the centre of the Beacons National Park, and the toughest climbs of the day. A sign told me the main road was going to be going up at 16% , a fairly tough little climb, then I turned toward the main objective for the day – The Devils Elbow. I have come down this many times, but never gone up it!
Suffice to say it lives up to it’s name, at never less than 11% and going over 17% in places, it is a tough climb, but also absolutely gorgeous. With that out of the way it is a stunning ride down the valley to Glyn Neath and then the rolling road back to Skewen and then home.
This is a great route, over 2K metres of climb, great views and some quiet roads (not the A40 bit though!).