I remember stumbling across the listing for Yr Elenydd on Audax UK’s charmingly old-fashioned website a couple of years ago. Those Welsh characters in blue and red type accompanied by the usual jargon and figures, set against a bright LCD screen in my dimly-lit living room looked almost exotic. Clicking through to an external website one found pictures of strange, barren landscapes and an impossibly lumpy profile. After a couple of minutes clicking around, I comforted myself with the usual excuses – too far away, too expensive, too early in the year, won’t be fit enough, etc, and consigned it to the long list of ‘things that I would like to do but am too inert to make happen’.
Feeling relatively strong this year, I decided to take a punt and shuffled off the modest entry fee and set about booking train tickets, spending nearly an hour on the phone ensuring I would be able to take my bike with me at each transfer. Event entry confirmed, I figured I would forget about the details and concentrate on getting in some long hilly miles before the actual event. The fear of being lost in a remote part of Wales broken, cold, and wet provided ample motivation and I got in the miles I needed with little fuss over the past month or so, mostly pounding my way up and down the local hills, and throwing in a few trips to the long rollers that wind their way through the Ashdown Forest. It’s been another month of solitary bike rides, but I’ve found it strangely satisfying, even though my slightly melancholic and business-like attitude to it worries me a little. Am I an unsociable person? Do I need to extend this to my riding? The answers are yes, and no. I think stepping away from the solitary end of the spectrum might be good for me.
I arrived in sleepy (but sunny) Shrewsbury, relieved that I’d managed to find space for my bike on the absurdly small train from Birmingham, and set about killing time before making my way to the village a couple of miles out of town. I was doubly relieved that Shrewsbury was not the dreary backwater border town that I had (unjustifiably) led myself to believe, and consoled myself with a coffee appropriately priced for Londoners. Taking the scenic route out of town I noted with smug satisfaction that this was far better than the standard Friday evening commute. I sought out a local pub for supper and after experiencing some fine local ‘banter’ I retraced my steps to help set-up at the village hall. People trickled in, buzzing with quiet but excited conversation. I kept to myself and ensured that I had all my stuff in order for the early morning start. Rather suddenly the lights seemed to disappear and all that remained was the concentrated effort to get to sleep on the functional camp beds amidst a resonant chorus of snoring…
It was a cold, early start just before sunrise. Within the first mile some the faster riders had already disappeared; I don’t think I caught them again. Being anxious about the distance and keen to ride within my limits I stayed within a group of 10 or so for the first few hours, which seemed wise since there was a stiff headwind. It wasn’t what you’d call an organised group, with some riders leaping off the front, only to be reeled in again, and others seemingly happy to take the wind for those clearly unprepared to reciprocate. At first I was a little perplexed, but then it dawned on me that audax is a good place for the cyclist who has shunned the relative formality of the club scene. The group whittled down on the ensuing Shropshire lumps, which were scattered around us like stale hot cross buns in the dim morning light of an overcast day.
Our first stop was at Shobden airfield for a quick cup of tea and a bacon sandwich in a warm, welcoming, wood-panelled club room. It was cold out, but the perils of stopping for a leisurely chat were clear, so I left quickly with another rider called George, who I’d spoken to just after the start. As it turned out, I would spend the remainder of the ride with George ; he was in his full Dulwich Paragon kit, had loads of cycling stories and is a big-ring rider to boot, so he was a good partner for those headwind miles.
The comfort of the club room split the pack and it was just the two of us for the miles of rolling A-road that stood between us and the next checkpoint. A couple of long drags announced that we were no longer in Shropshire. As always, when the terrain rears up I’m always filled with a sense of trepidation as well as delight at what’s in store – the great scenery, for sure, but also the fear of bonking or just not having the legs on the day. I was riding one or two gears lower than I might normally uphill, knowing that the effort saved here would probably be welcome later. Although scenic, this A-road heavy part of the route was overshadowed by what was to come. We rolled into the obligatory petrol station control for a warming coffee and a quick snack. We’d covered 70 miles but it felt like the ride hadn’t really started.
More rolling A-roads followed as we shadowed larger hills, before a neat row of houses in different pastel shades announced our arrival in Beulah. We turned down an unremarkable side road and quickly left the light traffic behind as it became clear we’d entered one of the valleys which were hinted at from the main road. At that point the whole character of the ride changed. It was quiet and wet and wooded, and eerily unpopulated. I’d been worrying about these sections, knowing that any kind of mechanical or navigational failure might have meant a long walk and a difficult journey back to the start. But they were the parts I knew I would savour most, and they didn’t disappoint. The road clung to the side of the valley on rippled tarmac surrounded by trees covered in bright green, luscious moss, like those out of a fairy tale.
Gradually the trees disappeared and the valley opened up into a corridor lined with little more than windswept grass. It was a strange, barren landscape. Empty. The Irfon river tumbled its way in the opposite direction, running parallel to the road like a ribbon. It would be quite nice to ride along valleys like this every day, with their comforting ups and downs, and grand reveals of more majestic scenery around every corner. We’d reached the head of the valley and the end of the easy riding. In surreal (but fitting for audax) fashion a small team of volunteers manned a completely isolated tent at the bottom of the Devil’s Staircase, a short but steep climb of about 25% which would take us out of the valley and deliver us further into the Cambrian mountains that lend the ride its name. I gulped a cup of squash and stuffed some cake in a jersey pocket before setting off for the bottom of the climb, handily concealed by thick tree cover. It’s clichéd but true to say that the road rose like a wall of tarmac, thankfully steepest at the bottom, and easing slightly towards the top after a series of switchbacks. (There is a nice video of the climb here from the 1992 edition of the Milk Race, in all its rose-tinted ‘pro’ glory.) What followed was a steep, technical, and twisting descent down similar gradients. Another 3 steep climbs seemed somewhat gratuitous, but not unexpected, in what was turning out to be unforgiving riding territory. It was blustery and cold but also quite distant from the concrete of London; I spared a thought for my trapped brethren and enjoyed the scenery.
One final exposed climb and I was evidently back on the valley road, where a rapid rolling descent finally allowed for some speed on the road into Tregaron where I knew lunch was waiting. It didn’t disappoint either. Tregaron appeared to be a sleepy and remote Welsh village – unpromising for the hungry long-distance cyclist. Thankfully the local Bowls club had been appropriated for the occasion and little Welsh grandmothers were serving up baked potatoes and puddings with huge measures of hot custard, all the while clucking away in their lyrical native tongue. The achievements of myriad Jones’ were listed on the club honours boards which lined the walls.
I felt like I’d completed the hardest part of the ride, at least on paper, since the steepest and most exposed climbs were all out of the way. That was probably wrong. George warned me of the perils of lingering and scoffing dessert, forcing ourselves out of the warmth of the bowls club. George dragged me along a flat section where we made good progress until the undulations began once more, first with the exposed climb out of Pontrhydfendigaid (where the wind showed itself to be almost behind us) and then with what felt like the toughest climb of the day out of Pontrhydygroes, a smooth but steep 16% climb away from the river, before turning on to a patchily surfaced road into the forest up an even steeper gradient. I caught another rider sneaking off his bicycle. Sympathy was mustered. The road wound its way back down into the valley to the secluded farming settlement of Cwmystwyth, where, as before, the tree cover disappeared and we were back at the bottom of the valley, rejoining the river Ystwyth which we’d crossed at Pontrhydygroes.
The names of the settlements seemed to roll off my English tongue like a mouthful of the slate that filled these valleys. I gave up. With the wind behind us the ride began to feel a little like a personal fairy tale. The Ystwyth was even more deserted than the Irfon. The road meandered alongside the river, sometimes up and sometimes down, before changing course to follow another river, the Elan. It was a little greener here but without a tree in sight. The road began to rise above a local reservoir. The wind whipped up too. Standing up on the pedals on the final climb out of the valley felt almost effortless even with 120 miles in the legs. It was magical – as if I had someone’s hand on my back pushing me up the hill. I crested the top, shifted in to the big ring and began a real shit-eating-grin of a descent into Rhyader. Thankfully there weren’t too many corners so it was simply a case of ‘letting the hammer down’. I have no pictures from this descent, although it was easily the most scenic.
Rain arrived but departed just as quickly. A benevolent weather day. Now we’d passed the halfway point and the mountain roads quashed, it felt as if the real had riding had been done. I was probably right about that. But the last section of the ride, although less spectacular, felt like the most consistently undulating as we headed back towards the ‘Shire’ through lush green farmland and lumpy hills. We began to catch (or were we caught?) other riders on long, quiet A-road ascents to Bleddfa and Knighton, both rewarded with fantastic, gently graded, sweeping descents.
At some point we ran out of hills to climb and began the gentle pedal through the lowlands of Shropshire back towards the village hall. One final food stop awaited us at Little Brampton, where a small team of helpers at a local farm shop served up more hot custard and dessert. I obliged this time. The last section mercifully avoided a steep traverse of the Long Mynd in darkness, although there was still one long drag to surmount. By this point I was squirming around on the bike a fair amount, impatient to sit down and take tension out of my shoulders. We picked up another rider for the last section who I am sad to say out-younged me for the first time on an audax. He’d been riding with his dad who’d had to finish early due to stomach trouble. Duncan was good company and a strong rider. He towed us back to Upton Magna and stormed down the final long descent where the lights of Shrewsbury (and Telford) glistened against the deep darkness of the Mynd to our right. He even had the energy for a little sprint in to Upton Magna. And that was it. Another three course meal at the finish ensured that I was very well fed even after 190 hilly miles.
Sitting in the hall at the end of the event, tired, aching slightly, and unwashed, everyone seemed very happy. After a poor night’s sleep previously I was desperate to lie down. Unfortunately sleeping in the village hall meant waiting for the slower riders. I can’t really remember what happened at this point but I must have fetched a camping bed from somewhere and fallen asleep because the next time I woke all the lights were off and everyone else had left – bewildering, but too tired and groggy to worry deeply. In the morning I helped the organisers pack everything away as I had time to kill before my train journey back. I stuffed everything in my bag and pedalled (in the small ring this time) along the quiet lanes back to the station, before the rest of Shrewsbury had woken up.
Oliver & Ottavio 