tour reports » Wales - the long and the short

This will be a long read, it was a long day.

On Saturday I returned to Wales, the second time this year, for another day’s riding. My motivation this time, to visit the longest named place (village) in Britain, as that is in the north, on Anglesey, and I live nearer the south I thought it would be fun to get a picture at one of the shortest named places in Britain along the way. I’d pre-programmed the whole route into my sat-nav, as I set out it claimed it was 618 miles and would take 15hrs 20 minutes if I didn’t stop.

It was a fairly early 6am start and I’d filled up the day before. After 80 miles of the M4 and M48, I thankfully left the monotony of the motorway behind and drop onto roads requiring more inputs to the controls. Under the trees the road isn’t wet, but it’s not fully dry and the air is filled with the smell of wild garlic, an aroma to be repeatedly found throughout the day, whenever I was riding alongside streams or rivers whilst in the shade of trees. But the lack of traffic this early in the morning allows a good fast pace and it clears the cobwebs, so in short order I arrive at the shortly named Usk and stop for a quick photo.

The Short
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From Usk I head north on the A479 through the Brecon Beacons, the scenery is great and traffic is still light and the roads are now dry, so progress is very easy and rapid. The story is similar on the A470 to Builth Wells.

As I head further north I get onto a road that has become one of my ‘go to’ roads, the A483 between Crossgate and Newtown. Last time I rode this road (Good Friday, whilst covering the four carinal points of Wales) I set myself a challenge, which was to set the cruise control at 60mph and not switch it off or touch the brakes etc. other than of course, going through the villages and other speed limited areas. There were a few corners that looked tight for 60 but proved doable. Unfortunately this time there was more traffic which meant I couldn’t maintain 60 in all of the bends, however there are fairly good opportunities to overtake so still managed ‘most’ of the bends at 60+ and I still love the fast flowing nature of this 20 miles of road. The wild garlic was present at points along its length too.

Newtown was 188 miles from home according to the bike trip, and time for the first planned fuel stop of the day, a bottle of water and a muesli bar for me. Using a slightly less interesting and seemingly always busier part of the A483 I continue north to get to Welshpool and then cutting north west on the A490 which becomes the B4391.

I remember very little about the early part of these roads so I suspect I was making progress, meaning the road was good ride. However at some point a valley floor drops away to my left as the road starts to climb up the side of the valley, it narrows and it becomes memorable for the scenery and it is soon apparent why, this is my entry into the Snowdonia National Park. For those who have ridden here there nothing I can say you don’t already know, for those that haven’t ridden there, try to get there if you can, not exactly under your control but if you can make it on a dry clear day so much the better.

At Bala I take the A4212 and pick up the A470 north, A487 west and then another section of roads I’ve done before, the tight and twisting B4410 on which I need to concentrate fully on the road itself to ride fast, darting between the stone walls. At Garreg I go north on the A4085, which is a little wider than the 4410 but just as challenging, more wild garlic makes itself known. Traffic is now becoming constant, but not so bad that I can’t overtake, leaving me free to take a number of the corners at a fast pace. This continues on the A498 out of Beddgelert, but to be fair on this road, until just before the turning onto the A4086 for Pen-y-Pass, the riding comes second to the scenery. Then at the Pen-y-Pass junction the road becomes a chaotic single lane carpark and looking at anything other than what the other road users, car, cyclist, pedestrians, dogs, kids, balls etc. are up to is not advisable in my opinion, an utter mess, one car is parked (engine running) in the junction as if it were a layby.

However I strike lucky, the A4086 over Pen-y-Pass is almost devoid of traffic and I get some great views of Snowdon itself and the surrounding mountainous landscape. The drop down from Pen-y-Pass also has minor traffic and with visibility over the tops of the road side walls I can clearly see what is coming up the pass (or rather wasn’t coming up) it enables me to carry out a pass that one driver takes exception too. I indicated and pass them on the right-hand side between two tight bends, and yeah maybe from his point of view it might have looked reckless but I was 100% sure there was nothing coming, but he decided to make me aware of his discontent, his flashing head lights and out the window hand gestures rapidly recede in my review mirrors. I continue to Llanberis, another chaotic carpark of a place where drivers and pedestrians seem to lose any road sense they might otherwise have, anything above walking pace in certain areas is dangerous, mad place, don’t like, glad not stopping, bye bye.

Not long after I’m joining the short queue of traffic to cross the Menai Strait into Anglesey on the ‘newer’ bridge and arrive at my intended destination, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, the longest place name in Britain, second longest in the world, I understand they shorten it to Llanfairpwll.

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I’ve been on the road for 6 hours and covered nearly 300 miles. I stop take a photo of bike under the station sign, then move bike out of way, eat a couple three pork pies and another bottle of water, all of which I brought with me (saves time and money that way). I then become a sort of un-official photographer for a seemingly endless queue of couple and individuals, who all wanted to be in their own picture under the long place name sign, I get to handle quite a variety of other people’s equipment (fnarr). Time to head home. I leave Anglesey on the original, more northerly Menai bridge. Wanting to use smaller A and B roads rather than dual carriageways I head back into Snowdonia National Park and my first time ride on the A4085 .

I now prefer this road to the A4086 Pen-y-Pass, you’ve got to do the Pen-y-Pass at least once in each direction for the views etc. but for views nearly as good, roads that are quieter and more fun the 4086 will now be the one I take, if I’m out this way again, which rest assured I will be. I then retrace my path to Garreg where I take the A4086 to Penrhyndeudraeth, a link road to the A496 and the mood of the day shift back from sightseeing to riding rapidly on wide open well surfaced roads.

As I leave Barnmouth the first bike, heading the same direction as me, overtakes, a sports bike rider. In 30mph limits I will stick fair close to a sat-nav indicated 30 or below, in 40s I might creep up to 42, 43, 44 dependant on the road conditions, traffic and so on. This rider preferred something closer to 50. Once into national (60) limits however I’m a little freer with my velocity and will cruise around 70~75 if I feel conditions allow, but I do enjoy accelerating hard through and out of bends, and in so doing might top 80, before backing off to drop back into the 70~75 down the straights, and I rarely cross a solid white line anywhere, even when to do so would allow me to pass a queue of cars moving slowly or queued stationary cars (parked cars, yes break the line, if safe, but at a carefully speed), that’s how I ride.

I take the A470 west/south for a short distance and turning onto the A487 south. On this road a GS rider tags onto my tail, I’m pushing on as described above, he seems happier to travel at over 80 down the straights and cross solid whites but doesn’t seem willing to come past when I ease back a little, so I revert to my norm and push on, I hope he had as much fun as I did on this 30 miles stretch, where between the villages there are some challenging stretches of road, particularly the stretch that borders the south of the Snowdonia National Park.

I turn off the A487 just before Aberystwyth to join the A44, but first fill up at Morrison on a retail park, the bike trip is reading 192 miles since the last fuel. It’s just before 3 in the afternoon, this is the second full tank for the bike. I take the opportunity for a 10 minute leg stretch, another bottle of water and the last pork pie. I’ve had a great day so far. I’ve still got 230+ miles to home, sat-nav says 5 hours away, but I couldn’t be happier. Or so I thought.

On the A44 west bound I’m riding as again above, but notice a couple of motorcycle lights slowly closing the gap on me over the course of 5 minutes. It’s obvious the lead bike is a big bike with a fairing, as it get closer I’m guessing it’s a BMW RT being ridden fast, I cannot see anything but the flicker of the head light of the second bike. My brain squeaks ‘un-marked police bikes’ so I back off to the 60 limit, the two bikes close rapidly and in the next village a big blue bike is right with me. As we leave the village the speed limit goes from 30 to 40 but I stay at 30 and keep well left and make it obvious I’m happy for him to pass me, which he does.

I’m pleasantly surprised to be passed by a BMW K1600 (with panniers and top box) and what I think was an Yamaha MT09 ‘naked sports’ model, and it’s obvious they aren’t unmarked police. Just as obvious is the K1600 rider knows how to ride, and the MT09 is following almost as if being towed by the K1600 on an invisible rubber band. I consider myself a fairly rapid rider, I know I could do better and I’d have loved to have followed the K1600 slightly nearer to study his riding, it was really smooth, flowing and rapid, his over takes were clean, never dangerous or risky, yet he was making progress. The MT09 wasn’t as confident and it was obvious his mate on the K1600 was getting to the head of a queue of traffic and calling him through via their intercom. I kept my distance but kept pace.

A bit further on another ‘super naked’ joined from a side road and came past me in a 40 limit, he was accelerating hard. On the open road it was soon clear he wanted to be ahead of the K1600 and MT09 too but was struggling to get close, in fact whilst he was fast down the straights (and through the villages) he was woeful in the bends and his passing of cars was at the other end of the scale to the K1600 rider, crossing double whites on the approach to blind bends, crests and generally being a big arse (bigger than myself or the other two). The A44 is an epic riding road, no idea what the scenery is like, I was concentrating fully on the road. One external thought did sneak through, I had previously been mistaken, could be happier and I was.

Where the A44 meets the A470 the other three bikes take it north east, the K1600 and MT09 still leading the other ‘super naked’, I think to myself ‘sometimes fast isn’t always the quickest’. I take the A470 south but I don’t drop my pace. I just love that feeling of dropping into a bend and winding on the throttle, feeling the rear tyre grip the road and pushing forward, the engine roaring, before backing off for the next bend, banging and popping on the overrun, or as I click it down via the clutch-less gear change, tip in for the next bend and wind on the throttle once again and repeating it over and over.

At Rhayadar I’m back on the A44 east bound for Crossgates, I cross my old friend from the morning the A483 and continue on the A44 (hopefully I will have an on board video of a small section of this soon). At the village of Kington I turn off south on the A4111, then a bunch of B roads which I remember nothing about, the only reason I can tell you I turned off here is by looking at the route I created in Tyre, I was in a groove. I eventually drop onto the A465 at Pontrilas, follow it to Abergavenny, where I turn off onto the B4521, which I rode a couple of times last year and enjoyed immensely, it didn’t disappoint today either. Tighter and more fiddly than the sweepers earlier in the afternoon, it’s a lot more stop/start and physical. The RS is probably not the best bike for this but there’s a naughty grin I get from hustling the RS along this road.

At St Owen’s Cross I take the A4187 south before dropping on to the A40 for a short distance, at Monmouth I turn onto the A466, which is a nice (if not great) road that follows the River Wye, BUT there’s big signs saying that there’s a major road closures further down, so half my brain is trying to recall how to tell the sat-nav this when it seemed to already know and I’m off onto unfamiliar back roads at the junction with Bigsweir Bridge.

I’m not recommending this part of the route, in one of the ‘lanes’ it felt like I could nearly touch both sides of the road at the same time - no idea how a car would ever get down it, fortunately I didn’t meet one coming the other way as there was also limited gates to fields or driveways or other passing places. And whilst surfaced with tarmac, the tarmac was surfaced with either a layer of green moss or with gravel, the contrast between the speeds on the A44 and B4521 earlier and here couldn’t be more stark. Later I found I’d accumulated a large bunch of bracken/ferns on left my ‘fog lamp‘, yes that narrow. After an excruciatingly slow burble I joined the A48 and rode into Chepstow for the third and final fuel stop of the day. Another stretch of the legs, another muesli bar and more water.

I was still 90 odd miles from home and it was going to be almost all M4 motorway but I just wasn’t in the mood for the ‘flock of sheep’ who sit in lane 2, whilst lane 1 is empty for hundreds and hundreds of yards. The sun was still up so I turned off at Junction 18, and took the A420 through Chippenham and A4 for Marlborough and Hungerford, nothing like the roads of Wales, but at least you can maintain reasonable progress, traffic is light and the road twists and turns enough to keep the boredom at bay. I joined the M4 for the run between Newbury and Reading and eventually arrive home 10 minutes before eight.

The sat-nav said I spent 12 hour 35 min riding the 621miles, which meant I spent just over an hour stationary; fuelling, eating, drinking and being the un-official photographer, and that the time is considerably shorter than the 15hours+ the sat-nav predicated originally is the second long and short of the day.

The bike was faultless, me less so, I was getting a dull ache in my right knee if I didn’t stretch my lower leg out straight every so often, so that’s something I’ll start doing in each town or village. And the following day my neck and shoulder muscles ached too, not unsurprisingly to be fair, and by Monday all was well. Not sure I could do two days like that in a row, I’d have to work up to it, but then I rarely get the chance of two days off in a row.

A screen shot of my route
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Having seen what Holger did with google maps and his day trip I'll try to get my route done similarly but not before I try and get the video done.

Jason

Brilliant write up Jason.

You have just described what is probably some of the best riding in the UK, period. I grew up in those parts and it is epic. The Crossgates to Newtown road is simply brilliant - I'm flippin' amazed you got near 60 through some of those bends - especially near Newtown. I always prefer it going uphill to Cross gates if you know what I mean . A44 likewise great road . A good detour is via Devils Bridge from just after Cemmaes Road.
Great report - great ride

Here's a link to the short video (I hope) Youtube video R1200RS on A44, the up high angle needs a bit more work but this was the third attempt at getting a camera that high up, still needs a bit more work on the angle and the stability.

Jason

Great write up. I need to get over to Wales again. In fact I am, next month.

Zitat von andygriff im Beitrag #3

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You have just described what is probably some of the best riding in the UK, period.

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Great write up and like others have said, I need to get back to Wales

Zitat von wessie im Beitrag #7

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The best way to get from Monmouth to Chepstow is the B4293 through Trellech & Devauden. Known locally as "over the top". Superb views, especially in the reverse direction as you drop down towards Monmouth.

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I love the 'Up high' footage!
Can you tell us how you achieved that?!?

I've had some good results from mounting my cameras on my panniers, but I like this vantage point too.
I don't have any properly edited footage, but this gives a decent idea: https://youtu.be/ffIfIyWHNAY

My one from Scotland is slightly better, as it captures the front wheel when it lifts off over crests in the road etc.

Great write up and ride, Jason.

Zitat von Scorch im Beitrag #10

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I love the 'Up high' footage! Can you tell us how you achieved that?!?

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Awesome project! Love it!

The bit where the ‘valley floor drops away’ is my back yard. I go hunting badly ridden Sportbikes there with my Husqvarna motard😄