Mal and I trained to Knighton from London on Saturday. We’d ended up with more changes but a quicker overall journey. Why trips listed on nationalrail.co.uk aren’t available when you try to book them at the station I do not know. Nevermind.
It turns out the Fleece House B&B I’d booked was run by a Polish woman. Mal had someone to talk to! 🙂
We dropped our stuff off and wandered around the small town of Knighton. Getting off the train, we’d actually met Christian, who I’d met at the previous Welsh sportive – the Devil Ride. He was staying just down the road and we met later for dinner and some beers (well, I had some beers, he was being much more disciplined and stuck to one :)).
drizzle
start, loads returning (dandy horse)
windy as hell!
steep descent
found sunglasses
DEEP water crossing
dried up whilst in the Elan Valley – beautiful dams
massive climb – smoked it 🙂
almost lost it
I love how it rains only during the ride.. Sat and Mon were blue skies.. 🙂
Le Poisson had a laugh on this ride – I decided not to worry about time again since my training has stopped and the conditions weren’t so nice to be risking fast descents. I saw about 20 people riding back. Later found out some of them had gone down on a slippery corner.
Lovely scenery. Horrid conditions until the Elan valley but the views were awesome. I stopped a few times to take photos of the dams (numb hands don’t help). The “creek crossing” reminded me of Day 3 of Tour of Wessex. This was definitely deeper though Wessex was wetter and windier. 🙂 I’d love to ride this course again in the dry but it does make it more of a challenge in the wet and I’m very glad I stuck with it.
Great stuff organisers and many thanks to the volunteers out on the course and at the finish. I had a fantastic long weekend in Knighton.
423 people doing the Long. 1000 entries total. 🙂
150th from 420.
http://www.cyclosport.org/article.aspx?id=940
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/photosystem/rightplacerighttime/photosales_image.php?path=6792_6754&file=081006192712&type=D
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