Up at 7am again.
This is getting to be a habit - and not one I'm sure I want. Well not if it's going to be that cold at that time in the morning. What has happened to this year? Up until March the weather was great and now ...
Well at least the M4 was quiet.
I arrived at the services at Aust at 8:40 to pick up the folks heading up from the South. There was ... was ...
Well I was there.
I gave the stragglers till 8:50.
All by myself, with sun shining and the day warming up, of over the Severn to Welsh Wales.
Even the main roads are fun there. Forgoing the twisty road up through Usk I took the A road North from Newport and found an excellent series of roundabouts, followed by lovely twisties. A good omen.
Waiting at the bus station in Abergavenny were Paul R, Tom and Tom's mate (whose name I gave forgotten already. My crapness with names even pisses me off). Paul R & myself are the only people to make it to all the runs so far. Who will be the first one to miss one ... We will see.
As we were enjoying the first coffee of the day Paul B rolled up. But where was BIG Mick ?
There were few bikes around at that time so we pulled all the bikes together, posed for photos, admired the furry seat on Tom's mates 'bird (I kid you not) and drank more coffee.
Still no BIG Mick.
Time was getting on & there were no 'I'm on my way' messages on anyones mobiles so at 10 past 10 we set off up the A40.
As I said - even the main roads are fun there. Paul B, who was leading, was having so much fun on the A40 that he wasn't even distracted by the turn off for the A4067. We turned round a few miles later having decided that, given we had planned a route, it would seem only sensible to stick to it, so, with tears in our eyes, we said goodbye to the A40. We'd be back. We knew we would. And we sensed that the A40 knew it too.
The roads numbers clicked past. The A4067 became the A4068, then A4069.
I was hoping that the folks who had not been on that route would trust us. The A4068 is 5 miles of 30mph limit and really does wear your patience. But it has to be endured if one is to experience the joys of the A4069, a strip of tarmac that winds across open moor. No junctions, no manhole covers (or manholes), no fences. Just moor and tarmac. And sheep.
Are we mad to suffer the A4068 ? Base jumpers spend many days climbing the Angel Falls to spend 17 seconds coming back down, so, with that in mind, I can say we're not mad. Deluded and often mistaken perhaps, but not mad.
Anyway, back to the A4069.
After wending it's way over the moor land, like a Glaswegian conga at closing time, the A4069 goes over a cliff.
Hairpin, hairpin, hairpin ... jiggidy jig down again ...
Llandovery at 12:00 (we had said 11:30 but, hey, we were enjoying ourselves). No BIG Mick and no Ken (who'd said that he'd probably be around at that time). Oh well. Time for lunch.
Three Sunday roast orders had been placed before Tom said "No. We're lunching at Crossgates. That's what it says on the plan". Well we can't argue with the plan. Gazing longingly at the Yorkshire puddings, we had a quick coffee and back on the road.
Back on the A40.
For a couple of hundred of yards (sigh).
The A483 is a seriously fast, yet twisty, romp over the hills. This was most definitely the fastest of the e-group runs so far. Paul R's toes getting warm from his boots scraping the road and I don't know how I managed to keep the pegs off the road. It's strange, you never touch a peg down when you think you will, only when you forget about it and sssscccccrrrr-oops.
The signs were starting to get to me around this time. Now I have nothing against the Welsh language and it's use on signs but I do wish that there was some consistency. When you're travelling at speed and you glance at a sign you don't need to read it all to understand it. Just the key word and distance.
"Temporary" , "5m" ; "Loose", "1/2" ; "No white", "300".
These give enough information. Obviously, Temporary injunction on molesting black sheep. Easy.
But glance at a few signs & see a bunch of apparently random consonants and you quickly learn to focus on the second half of the sign. It's at this point that they start putting the English at the top, until, of course, you start looking at that part of the sign. They might as well write both sections in Welsh and save having to pay a translator.
Hmmm. Maybe this is what they actually do ...
Tom was correct about Crossgates for lunch. They do chips. Very good chips. Very very good.
Over lunch, I asked Paul R "Who did pair you up with for RH"
"Fiona"
"No way. I paired Paul ..."
"You've got us mixed up again haven't you. I thought you had"
"Well why didn't you say something"
"You're crap with names, it's OK"
"No it's not OK. I got it wrong. So that's why Paul N was asking. Damnit. I'll sort this out"
And so back to Abergavenny, not forgetting the wonderful detour to take in the A479 from Talgarth to the (yes) A40. I swear it remembered us.
(Feel free to ignore the earlier 'not mad' statements)
Good roads. Fast run. Five refuelling stops. Another service creeps up. My thanks to Tom and Paul B.
On the way home I knew I was getting tired. I passed a sign that read "Hidden Dips" and got a vision of Mac & bike disappearing in a tub of thousand island dressing.