I looked at this ride in the calendar last year and thought it sounded fantastic, especially as I used to live in Bangor 20 years ago. However, as I'd only done a couple of 200s I thought it was probably a bad idea and did Round the West Riding instead.
So, this year I had to enter.
Lying in my tent at 11pm I heard the church clock strike 11. "Hope that's not going to continue all night", I thought. Looking on the bright side, hearing the chimes every hour meant I knew I'd not overslept...
I rode with John Spooner all day (and night) and others at various times. The climb up to Lake Vyrynwy was OK, but riding along the lake with Martin and Deneice was fantastic. The weather was perfect, we were in the shade and the lake was picture postcard beautiful. The day was warming up, so the climb over the gated mountain road became a chore. I'm no mountain goat, and I don't handle heat well. As the grades headed to 20% (according to my GPS), and the front wheel was lifting, I admitted defeat and walked some of the steepest bits (ever conscious of a lot of hilly stuff ahead and not wanting to trash my legs). I do bicycle rides, not unicycle rides
The day was heating up more, and I spent a lot of time being concerned about having enough water; I drink copiously normally, and on both this stage and the one into Llanberis I was carefully rationing myself and still arrived at the controls with only half a mouthful left.
The climb up to Llanberis hurt, because I was overheating. Turning off Nant Gwynant onto Pen y pass I stopped in the shade of a tree, feeling quite faint I needed a short break to cool down, then it was actually a relief to have a headwind for the final climb; I was strong enough to push into it, and it was keeping me cool.
Pete's Eats was also an institution when I lived in Bangor 20 years ago; it's great to still have pints of coffee and good food. We met up with Andy and Jasmine there, though they left before us.
I found Anglesey to be a bit of a slog; for some reason I've never really liked cycling on the island. It's not difficult riding, just not satisfying somehow, so Tesco was welcome. It does seem like a lot of effort to spend a day on the bike riding through mountains to buy a bit of fruit and a drink at Tesco. I could nip down the road and do that
Back across the island and through Bangor teaming up with Jethro and A Random One. The climb from the bridge was nothing like as bad as I remember. I was still very apprehensive about the ride beyond Bangor services; I'd never gone that way on a bike, and driving along the A5 it seems to be big, endless climbs.
I was very pleasantly surprised - it really was very easy. You know that you are going uphill, but we were riding as a two abreast pack of four chatting very easily. Past the lake as the light was failing, then the long, lovely descent into Betwys-y-Coed. There was a bit of a disappointment there as the 24 hour garage wasn't serving coffee, so we made do with some caffeinated canned drinks.
Another fairly easy long climb up out of Betwys-y-Coad, then the rolling road to Glyndyfrdwy. This seemed to go on a bit, but we were travelling at a good pace and arrived there by 2am. John and myself decided to grab a couple of hours kip, the others continued. 4am came very quickly (I suspected the controller had adjusted my watch and was having a joke when he tapped me on the shoulder). A rather nice gammon and pineapple roll sat a little queasily in my stomach as we got onto the road, but soon settled down as we rolled uneventfully back to Upton Magna (even if John did accuse me of appraising bus shelters as sleeping accomodation).
Some more food, a couple of hours sleep in the tent until my family came to pick me up, and home past the huge queues on the M54 for the air show.
It was a great ride, many thanks to John Hamilton and his team for organising and supporting us.. The only downside was struggling in the heat until evening came. Back home now I'm stiffening up a bit, but happy with how things went on my first 400.
