Road Touring - Cambridge-Leeds, Geneva-Paris

I have been touring on the 'road'. I started off by riding, with my buddy Elliot, from Cambridge to Leeds, via the peak district including the famous mountain bike route "Cut Gate".

We made steady progress up the Tissington Trail.

Near the Bowenvale reservoir, the flying buggers were out in force. On your face, crawling into your ears. They took a while to swarm. We made ghetto masks. I used my mesh pot cover, Elliot his mesh cap. It was an early night, hiding in the tents from our insect oppressors. The next morning; breakfast was on the move, until we found somewhere high enough to escape the midge onslaught.

We rode past Howden reservoir, hoping to escape out insectoid nemeses.

At the bottom of the Cut Gate mountain bike route.

Elliot strike a heroic stance, whist the clouds give an omen.

We rattled haphazardly over Cut Gate, with Johnny Flynn playing off of Elliot's x-mini speaker and Sansa clip. No broken spokes or flats, which felt lucky. Cut Gate is sweet, and I'm looking forward to riding it with a slightly more appropriate set-up.

The skies opened. Fortunately, the pub opened soon after that.

We rode along the canal cycle path into Leeds.

Elliot finds his spirit animal in Leeds.

After finishing that tour; I hopped on a place out of Manchester, flew to Geneva, met up with my friend, Elinam.

I rode the northern route around Lac Leman, to the mountains near Eigle, to see my special lady.

Lots of the Swiss mountain houses are built in this sweet old style.

Shhiiitt. I switched the front and rear brake cables, and hacked together something slightly safer.

The 'cross bike can handle light mountain biking, so I took the essentials for riding around these parts.

From there I rode through the Swiss Alps, to Bern.

A Swiss-German couple allowed me to camp on their farm and gave me a family. I also got shown a scythe demonstration. Still sharp. When it comes to shelter, my normal habit is to find somewhere secluded and 'stealth' or 'wild' camp. Well, not anymore.

Everywhere I camped on this latter tour, was with full permission. I'd rock up to a small farm, introduce myself in bad German or terrible French and ask to camp. I only got turned down once and often I was given food and treated to local hospitality. In one case I was supplied with wine, Ricard, huge amounts of pasta, cheese and far too much wine. I promised to learn better French and prove it in a decades time when I cycled back past.

In Bern. Bern is nice and you can swim in the river.

Onto France.

Lessons Learned

Positive: Ask to camp. It's fun and you might get treated to some local hospitality.
Negative: Don't try to jack up the torque of your multitool by lashing a stick to it. It probably isn't built for it.
Wash the pads on your helmet from time to time. When heavy rains comes, the years of accrued sweat and grime dissolves and runs into your eyeballs.
France is big and a lot of it appears to be pretty flat.

I'm not sure about solo touring. On one hand, independence and self-reliance are great. Forcing yourself into situations, and coping with them, is a hell of a learning experience. You also set the pace, and don't have be considerate or anything. However, The compulsion to keep riding is strong, and overrides a lot of the instincts I'd have in company - to explore the area, waste time exploring the nooks of the area. Maybe next time, when I'll hopefully be able to speak a little more French than 'Puis je camper sur vos terre?'. Although it's a pretty good phrase to start with, in my experience, anyway..

Wentwood Forest - Downhill Trail

Wentwood forest is an ancient woodland to the north-west of Newport in South Wales. It's hella pretty, and home to a very good downhill trail, as well as numerous forest tracks and cross country singletrack trails. The autumn is an excellent time for the vibrant forest colours, although, unsurprisingly, the ground is sloppy as all hell.

The downhill trail starts about here, winding through the woods, heading west, along relatively flat terrain. The trail is dominated by roots, but a lot of fun. After meandering through the woods, the trail starts heading north west and downhill. Trail features are more obviously intentionally constructed here, including berms and jumps.

View Wentwood Downhill Trail in a larger map

The local mountain biking association have not revealed the route of the downhill trail. Their website is apparently no longer active, so I've put the map here. If anyone from the local club would like it removed, I'm happy to oblige - contact me with the address here.

I haven't got photos of the last third of the trail, but in current conditions it was constant error correction, basically surfing down the hill on the tide of leaves and mud. It was good fun - and none of the drops were obligatory - some of the beginnings of the sections were steep and fairly sketchy. In general, even novice downhiller will be mostly fine.

The crisp leaves and (occasionally) clear skies of autumn.

The forestry commission have been busy.

Looking south-east, towards the Severn.

Elliot cocoons himself against the cold.

Trail slop.

Two steeds o' aluminium at rest.

Amphibious riding.

The flat part of the trail winds through the coniferous trees - it's rooty and rugged and a lot of fun.

The trail goes over a bridleway/track, and starts another section. This section is currently dominated by a comically thick covering of leaves.

Elliot rails the berm on the first section of the downhill.

Wentwood Forest is great fun. The downhill trail is fun and challenging in places, but mostly just a good time. Much of the singletrack is delightfully rugged. Aside from the main downhill trail, there are numerous little pieces of singletrack and normal footpaths throughout the forest to be found.

Ridge Ride - Grwyne Fawr Reservoir and Rhos Dirion/Bal Mawr

Taking advantage of the dry conditions of summer, myself and Elliot took cyclocross bikes (Surly Crosschecks) into the Black Mountains, north of Abergavenny. Lacking cars, there was a road ride before hitting the moors, so as a compromise we took (hopefully) off-road worthy cyclocross bikes and crossed our fingers conditions would be favourable. The typical state of the moorland is boggy. With anything but the chubbiest tyres, you sink in. Even if it hasn't rained in a while, the peat retains moisture and makes riding frustrating - sapping the energy and the will. Especially if you make the mistake of wandering into an actual marsh, in a poorly devised shortcut.

Fortunately, the moors were as dry as I've seen them, making the route we went was 90% ridable and 100% awesome. The valley leading to the Grywne Fawr reservoir is dramatic and lush, with either a road or gravel tracks leading up through the valley. Then come the rocks, but only a few kilometres or so, leading you to the moor. Once you reach the trig point, and set off south along the ridge it's almost exclusively downhill, predominantly singletrack and excellent views of the black mountains in all directions.

The route we took is shown below, although it'd be easy enough to modify it for arriving by car. Just park at the bottom of the Grwyne Fawr valley, cutting out the ride to Abergavenny and back.

View Grwyne Fawr Loop - Ridge Ride in a larger map

Initially we rode up the paved road up the valley, then crossed a bridge over the Grwyne Fawr. This took us form paved roads and onto gravel/dirt tracks.

Ell-dogg shows his skidding skillz on the track.

A short, rocky descent led us towards the edge of the Mynydd du Forest forest.

The Mynydd Du Forest.

Looking north up the Grwyne Fawr valley.

Looking south down the valley , on the edge of the Mynydd Du Forest.

We ride up the Grwyne Fawr valley. The path here is decent, there's couple of slightly rocky spots, but nothing extreme.

My new build 'Handsome Dan' looking, in reverence, at the reservoir.

Ellsworth takes pictures on his ancient film camera, and I use the opportunity to take a confusing photo.

The reservoir's edge.

A camping spot for the future? At the north end of the reservoir.

We ride up the track alongside the reservoir. The riding is easy, prior to the end of the reservoir.

A profit of the coming rockstorm, alongside the Grwyne Fawr river.

Elliot put up a valiant fight against the loose, rocky ascent. Ultimately, walking progressed at similar speed and was much less taxing.

These are the tracks nearing the top of the moor. They're remarkably dry, so easy to ride. But not for long - when winter rolls round the moors will get sodden.

The trig point atop Rhos Dirion.

The descent (southwest) from the trig point. We made rapid progress from now on. We were both thoroughly loving this descent. There's enough of a descending gradient that you bomb along the path effortlessly, and only one steep section of descent. The path is currently great riding, compact, lumpy but not taxing, so just a good ol' time. Go ride it if you can. It was fun on a 'cross bike, it'd be even better on a mountain bike. There's a couple of short ascents but these are minor compared to the descent.

Heather lines much of this path, adding a sprinkling of purple to the hillsides.

These sandy tracks were surprisingly solid.

Looking east.

Looking north, along the ridge towards the peak of Rhos Dirion.

Looking south.

Sublime singletrack. Not techy, just hella fun.

Looking south toward the Sugarloaf.

The track towards the southern end of the ridge, near Twyn-y-Gaer, an iron age hillfort (more info here.

There's a nice, and convenient pub (the Queen's Head) at the bottom of the final descent, on road, from the ridge.

I creeped out some teenage girls taking this photo. I was waiting for the flag to fly, damn it.

This is an excellent ride, even if you're relatively new to mountain biking. The singletrack is great, the views are excellent and dams are cool. Do it before conditions turn the moorland into a slog-fest.

Not relevant to the ride itself, but interesting to some; We met a fella on the train transporting an old postie bike he'd just bought. Rod brakes and all.