South Wales May 2008

Colourful BBQ preps, originally uploaded by kendyck1.

To finish off my week off we went camping in South Wales.
First I met Tom, Jim, Danny and Clare and we rode at Brechfa forest and rode about 28km due to a slight navigation error on account of Jim's need to relieve himsellf on the real trail. It was a good trail lots of jumps and berms but not sure it is worth the extra long tour to get there.
We camped at Glyncorrwg after raiding the local supermarket for snacks and breakfast. After pitching camp we enjoyed a beer and some home cooked nosh in the Skyline cafe while watching MTB movies- my idea of heaven.
Saturday we had a slap up breakfast of scarmbled eggs and beans on toast cooked on the camping stove, then rode Whytes level first and I got left behind while we sessioned a section so I ended up riding all the DH on my own.
Then we rode Penhydd this time I was with Tom, Jim and Danny. Clare rode with her Uni buddies. That is such a fantastic trail I love it.

After a 2nd supermarket raid we pitched camp ata smelly CwmCarn where the sewers were overflowing- nice! We had a very late BBQ of kebabs and burgers and a few beers, listening to tunes from Tom's car. Such great weather we were up til late in shorts and T's before retring tired and satiated.

I was awoken abruptly byu Kiwi banging on my tent looking for Danny! And so another brakfast cook up and then kit up in our DH gear to ride the Cwmdown shuttle all day in the blazing heat.

I rode my Cove G-spot and had a few good DH runs getting better each time but a blow out on the wooden ramp at the bottom on my 2nd run! It was very dry course and kinda dusty! Yes Wales and dusty trails!

That night we moved camp to Pen Y Fan and played frisbee late, ate curry courtesy of Danny's cooking and iced Tom's poorly ankle.

I got up at 5am, packed my tent and jumped on my bike at Cwmcarn to do the Twrch trail, my legs hurt so much on the climb but it was amazing to be out here early in the morning in shorts and T-shirt and no-one else around. I rode the 18k in about 1.5 hrs and then hit the M4 to commute back to work at home by 11am!

What a great start to the working week!
(It was ll downhill after that I'm afraid!)