Trans Wales 2007 by PF

And so on Saturday 12 August 2006 I headed for Wales with Julie M Dinsdale.
What's the M for? It's the road we took to get to Wales.

We were doing a mountain bike event that started the next day.
There were long rides every day that weren't timed but had to be completed within time limits.
On four out of the seven days there was also a time trial which was timed.
Are you following this?
And we would have to camp. This meant putting up a tent every night and taking it down and packing every morning. The food would all be provided.
And in the morning I feasted on a bowl of baked beans, two bowls of porridge & peaches and a bowl of tinned grapefruit.
For those that wanted it there was bacon or sausages.
Anyway we set off the next morning heading north from Builth Wells. There was of course a strong northerly wind.
How annoying was it?
Imagine someone sat opposite you in the pub and just blowing in your face all evening.
Still, it's better than someone blowing off in your face.
It was all on trails I had never ridden before and we were extremely rural.
The trails were excellent. Even the river crossings. I'm second from the right.
We had two bread roll sandwiches for lunch and a cereal bar. I also ate three bananas and a bar of my own.
I arrived back within two hours of the time limit so set up tent then a shower in a trailer in a field. I then started on the snacks I'd bought with me. A bowl of cereal then a scoop of mixed nuts, raisins and prunes.
I then walked up to get some water and passed the finish as I returned to my tent.

As I did a girl crossed over the finish. She got off her bike muddy but not filthy. She started to walk and took her helmet off. She took her hair pin out, ruffled her hair and this long thick stream of red hair cascaded around her. And the glamourous woman headed towards the tents. It was like watching Clark Kent go into a telephone box and Superman come out. Unfortunately she wasn't very tall otherwise I would have been besotted.

Anyway it was nearly time for tea and I was starving.


The toilets were about 400m away, which is a long way to go in the night. Fortunately we had camped by a bush. All that effort and I didn't even need to go in the night.

Breakfast was at 6.00am and I was eating porridge by 6.30. By 6.35 I was onto my second bowl when I looked up. The glamourous redhead was sat at one of the tables with a cafetiere (one of those things you push down on to get real coffee).
Now that's what I call camp style. Get your priorities.

Anyway. This morning was the first time trial. Or 'special stage' as they were called.
We went off individually every 30 seconds in numerical order. As number 216 (it went up to 240) I had a long wait before it was my turn. And I don't mean barbells, they're more heavy weights than long.

But my turn came and I set off. 16km. Up hill for 7km, across the top of the hill for a kilometre then down for most of the rest. I caught the man in front within a minute. In all I passed five people. But two came past me, numbers 224 and 226. They were second and first respectively. I was 13th (in category).
Then it was time for a snack before we did the un-timed time limit stage. We finished in Machynlleth.
It's in Wales. Apparently it was once the capital. Anyway we were camping on the rugby pitch. This meant that the guys who came to do rugby training had to do it on the football pitch. I imagined the footballers were on the campsite.
My god. The redhead's tent was a large four person one. With a pattern on it. Flower silhouettes all over it. I was sharing a two man tent.
Just why didn't I know we would have room to carry so much stuff.
Anyway. There was a pub in town and this was the last we would see all week. So after fish and chips Andy, Julie, Graeme and I had a couple of drinks (each!) in the beer garden.
Then we went back to the campsite for the race food.
There were some Italians in the race and now they were all parading around the campsite on the way back from the showers in bathrobes. Classic Italian cut stripey pattern bathrobes.
I thought I had come to a bike race but somehow seem to have ended up in a lifestyle show.
I've even forgotten my best cycling sunglasses.

Tonight I was glad I'd pitched the tent near a bush. It must have been the beer.


The official toilets for the rugby club had no light in them. Fortunately the ones in the car park were a big secret and only cost 10p. No queues and natural light. Well worth it and a bargain as the man who collects the money wasn't there at 6.00 in the morning.
Yes, by now we had gotten into the swing of early rises.

Anyway. It was a hilly ride today. Again. But something new today. It rained. Nothing unusual about that especially in Wales. No, but when we started the race Wales was actually on drought alert and they hadn't had rain for 8 weeks. And now it starts.
But it was only a contiously heavy shower and was all over before I got back to camp. I started putting tents up when low and behold it started raining again. Very heavily. I put my waterproof overtrousers on and was envied by all I knew.
It did stop raining again which was fortunate as we had to go out and race in the dark.

Yes, we had a night time time trial around the trails of Coed-y-Brenin. We were going off in quickest time order. This meant fastest first. I would be one of the earlier ones to go. Still, there were enough people in front of me to ride past a few with mechanicals. At least four punctures and what looked like a broken chain. The fellow patting the grass around him as he looked for bits he'd only just put down.
I was more concerned about finishing and rode conservatively as a result. Especially on the tight, twisty and bumpy course where I would sometimes have to stop dead and track stand whilst turning the bars frantically to look for the direction of the trail. The only light I had was on my bars so I could only see in the direction they were pointing. Going over drop-offs I just had to react to whatever was on the other side. Anyone who remotely knew the trails had a distinct advantage in knowing what to expect.
Towards the end I was passing people who were running due to mechanicals.

But I finished in one piece and headed back to the campsite for a shower. At 11.40pm I got into bed and set the alarm for 6.30am - I wanted a bit of a lie in after the late night.

zzzzzzzzz


We set off in a misty damp morning. The first section was part of the Coed-y-Brenin trails. Miles of gnarly singletrack. The signposting could have been more frequent but I made it through. A girl in front of me crashed at one point. She was fine but at the next technical bit she tried to put the brake on only to discover the lever wasn't where it was meant to be. Luckily she was fine again although the crash with the tree down the steps could have been worse.
I finally emerged from the trails. 75km of singletrack might actually have taken me up to the time limit, although I was getting quicker and more adept at riding it. Anyway there was now a section on road. Along and down, round a sharp left hander and then straight up the valley side.

As I slowly made my way up the hill I looked to my right. Behind the wall of trees I could see into a garden. It went all the way up the valley side. Tiering like rice plantations in the Andes. But instead of rice were hundreds of lush plants. A thousand greens with a melee of coloured flowers.
It took me quite a while to ride past them and after I'd gone my train of thought was trying to convince myself I hadn't just seen the hanging gardens of Babylon. Not quite the Garden of Eden but could civilisation in the west really have begun in Wales? Could this be a reason why Brutus choose Wales as his place of excommunication after the murder of Caesar?
I feel obliged to mention the rain as this was now a common occurence. Although in between the torrential downpours it was actually very warm and a pleasant August day. But that was only between the downpours.
I arrived at the campsite in between showers and put the tents up leaving them open and covers off to dry from the night before. It immediately started raining heavily.
I finished putting the tents up and put all the gear inside and it stopped raining. I should at this point explain I was putting a tent up for me and Andy to share and I also put Julie's tent up. They took them down and packed them in the morning.
Anyway, next was a shower. We were staying on a campsite. There were two sets of showers. One was pretty good by all accounts but I didn't find those. I only found the ones that could more favourably be referred to as dribbles rather than showers.
I gave up after five minutes and headed for the river. I put my towel on the bank and just got in. It wasn't deep enough to bath but I could just submerge myself by lying down.
The reported sightings of Gollum that day in the Welsh Enquirer should be put down to coincidence. I for one still have a tan from Poland. But yes, it is true we have never been seen in the same room together.
But the day wasn't over and we still had the results ceremony from the night before's time trial.
Cutting through the faff, I won a light. It would have been more useful the night before the time trial so I could have used it. But so what. I'd won an Exposure Lights Joystick:
http://www.use1.com/exposure/products/exposure_joystick/index.php
Street value £165.

Sharing a two man tent isn't the most sociable place to play with your joystick but I awoke the next morning and my first thought was,
"I won a light."


Another day another time trial. Today it was the 15km Cli-Machx trail.
I don't name these things. I thought of Climb-Axe, Climb-Max and O-ive-Come on my way round the course.
Anyway.
Today I was ready to pounce. Go hard and break into the top ten. Perhaps even the top five.
Ha, I'm lying. Kidding myself? No, just lying to you.
I would ride as always. A steady plod. A fast plod, but a plod.
And ten seconds after I started my chain came off when I changed gear. Serves me right for thinking I would hammer this course today.
But I still overtook someone on my way to the top of the course. It was on the way down that more than ten people rode past me like I was standing still.
Well I wasn't standing still. I was frantically trying to change my rear tube as I'd punctured. It wasn't long though before my frantic actions subsided into resigned movements.
Then off I set again, at least I overtook two others on the way down but this didn't make up for the fact that I'd lost upto eight minutes in one of the timed sections. What a slow change.
Fill in your own swear words here.
There was a lovely visitor centre with cafe at the start/finish of the trail and it was about two hours before the afternoon ride.
This meant a flushing toilet then a bowl of hot fresh minestrone soup.

65km this afternoon. Strangely it had stayed dry for the morning time trial. In the afternoon it didn't stay dry. Quite the opposite. It surely was monsoon season. Although I'm not sure if I got wetter from above or from below. The course during the week went through an unfeasible number of river crossings.
Today though was also the day we got lost.
At some point we cycled through a town. Now towns are where people live and some people are right little shits. And it was here that someone removed an arrow that marked our direction to turn so we all rode miles along a road blindly following each other. Eventually the lead motorcycle at the front realised he'd gone astray so those of us near the front all stopped and decided what to do. I didn't care but thought, "The adventure starts here."It didn't. Someone made a decision to go across country. We did and only had to turn back once and go a different way. We weren't lost without hope for any moment and not long later we rejoined the course. And we all made it to the finish within the cut-off time.
Campsite tonight was another sports field. Nice and flat and the sun was out. So everyone tried to dry everything and I found myself in the middle of a Chinese laundry. Alhough I can't confirm what a real Chinese laundry looks like.

Showers weren't very powerful again tonight so I looked for a river. There was a large stream in the woods down the bank from the campsite. I headed down there, walked 100m along a nice little footpath then cut through the forest, undressed and got in the stream. Just deep enough to wash in.
A strange echo in the forest though, it sounded like there was a car driving towards me. I looked up and there must have been a minor road that cut through the forest. About fifteen meters away. There was no point trying to run to get my towel so I just sat down in the stream and watched as the car drove past.

Nothing else to do all evening except eat, clean my bike and eat some more. My massage wasn't until 9.00pm tonight so it was quite late before I got to bed. Easily ten o'clock.
Still it gave us plenty of time to swap our stories of the day.


Today I punctured just as it stopped raining. Amazing, I was able to change my tube in the dry and even let my waterproof dry and air for ten minutes as I did so. I was in no hurry today and had decided to have a relaxing day before this evening's time trial. I even set off almost last. Well I was trying to shelter from the rain before I started. No good though, I would have to start in the persistant rain. Persisting it down it was.

Today was a great route. We followed a beautiful river valley down for miles. Singletrack for endless stretches.
Today was a ridiculous route. We followed a river down stream crossing it eleven times. Not on bridges but fords. The track was flooded in places anyway.
Strangely all of the fords were rideable. This was in spite of the water completely submerging my front wheel at one point.
But all the water, weather and mud takes it's toll. Well it did on me.
I was starting to slow down. Finding it hard to ride, I felt like I didn't have the strength needed to keep the pedals turning. Then on a down hill section I actually slowed down.
It wasn't me then it was the bike. That was some sort of a relief but hopefully my wheel wasn't ruined.
I checked. No the wheel was fine. It must be the brakes. They must be rubbing. I had just ridden hard then descended. Now I took hold of my brake disc. For a fraction of a split second.
I squeeled as loud as possible. The disc was so hot.
My poor fingers. Burnt. Singed. Throbbing. Hurting. What an idiot.
But again the rain had stopped so I was able to bodge a repair in under half an hour and carry on going. The wheel rotated freely but the brake had no modulation, it was either on or off. I sucked my fingers. Later the blisters would be perfectly shaped like the pattern of my disc.

It wasn't far to the end from here but we first had to ride the Cwm-Rhyiadr course. This was fine going up and amusing going down, what with such sharp back brake action.
Today I arrived back at the campsite after Julie and Andy and they had put the tents up. Andy also had a baked potatoe and a burger. He now blamed the burger for his sickness.
There was a timetrial this evening but Andy didn't ride it, instead choosing to extremely projectile vomit.

I did ride it and strangely nothing untowards happened. Ok my back brake made everything on the descent hairy and sketchy but surely that only added to the fun?
On the way up I rode past a rabbit. It was dazed and just sat breathing as I rode past. My wheel inches away. It must have run into someone's wheel. I wondered if it needed putting out of it's misery. That would mean turning round and going back to it. I carried on.
I put enough time back into Graeme to overtake him on the general classification after losing time on the puncture.

So a shower after the timetrial and we even got a selection of beans with the food this evening and not just cheesey pasta.

Also I even had the tent to myself. Unfortunately though this was due to Andy's sickness getting sufficiently bad that he'd abandoned the race and gone to stay in a cottage.
(Visited him the next day and he'd started to recover).

Tomorrow we only had to ride back to the start. No more timed events.


There was a nursery rhyme when I was young:

Rain, rain go away
Come back another day.

Well today was that day. For every time ever a child recited that rhyme a raindrop fell on my head. That's not counting the ones that fell on my neck, shoulders and every square inch below. Some kids really are too big and fat for their own good though, at one point they really hurt. Smashing off my teeth even as I breathed heavily.
Yes, today it rained. And rained and rained.
Did I mention the rain.
The wettest day I can remember. The heaviest rain I have known.
At least it couldn't get any worse. Well that's what I thought at one point. Ten seconds later it did.
This is what hyperbole should be saved for. I was astonished, I was flabbergasted, I was shocked, I was wet.
One of the other racers simply put their arms up to the skies and shouted,
"Bring it on, bring it on."

We crossed many small streams today. Although they could have been footpaths or bridleways as our tracks were equally wet with just as much running water on them.
Many people asked me if my gears worked. One guy who'd spent £67 the night before having his fixed couldn't use more than three gears.
I was turning the shifter and pulling the cable to change the front. The raer needed a quick back heeled kick everytime I needed to downshift.

I ate bananas in the rain, I ate energy bars in the rain and I ate two peanut butter sandwiches under a tree trying to shelter from the rain and failing miserably.

We started in drizzle and it even stopped whilst I rode up the first big climb so I could take my waterproof off. How kind. Then at the top it started again. I put my waterproof back on and didn't remove it until the finish. There was no let up.
Did I mention the rain?

But I wasn't cold and I could keep riding. A puncture or a fall today would have been depressing. Landing in the surface mud that was everywhere.
Oh, today I did have my only fall of the race. Riding down a track stuck in a long long rut, I eventually caught the side and went flying. Amazingly I landed on a grassy bank grazing only my finger and trimming my fingernail.
Then at some point I recognised the trail. We were back on the Cli-Machx trail only heading home. There was a feed station at the lovely visitor centre with cafe. Amazing. It was the only time I needed a flushing toilet and here was one. It must have been the four bananas every day for a week.

The road retraced the first 20 or so kilometres to the start and had cut out a chunk of the original planned route due to the weather. Softies.
Anyway. This meant a long stretch on the road back to Builth Wells. I was with an Italian and we took it in turns to get soaked off each others back wheels as we bit and bitted. (Slipstreamed each other in turn).
And then we entered civilisation. It was strange riding into and through Builth Wells. High brick buildings and streets and shops. People who weren't cyclists or marshalls.
Then the finish.

I showered in the women's showers having arrived home in time before they put a stop to this and increased the length of the queues in the men's.
Hot water. Wasn't I sick of water pouring down on me? Somehow this was different. Perhaps 30 degrees of separation, each one a centigrade.
I hosed my bike and had a massage. Julie and Graeme had finished by now and we could go home. As the sun came out.

Great event. Brilliant course, good organisation for the first year and only one bad point. Did I mention the rain?


Paul Facer
Home and dry.