On Saturday I finally visited a climb that @penbwl had told me about on Twitter a couple of months ago. It was way harder than I had expected, it may actually be the toughest climb I’ve done to date. I rode past it at first, but a glance of to the left and a muttered “fuuuuuuuuck me” and I knew I’d found it…

Right from the off it goes over 20%, nothing strange about that I thought, climbs often start off steep and then mellow out, this one is different…

I’d been feeling really weak and pathetic during the ride to this point and when I realised that the gradient wasn’t getting any easier I actually considered giving up, obviously I would never do such a thing but this thought kept nagging all the way up…

Before long I started over-heating, it was way too steep to keep a hand off the bars long enough to put anything in a jersey pocket so I just grabbed at my headwear and threw it to the side of the road. Only a desperate climb pervert like myself would throw Santini and Rapha gear to the ground rather than stop and put a foot down…

It was unrelenting, the gradient mixed with my impending internal combustion, hyperventilation and minor heart attack meant that I was all over the road, swaying from left to right narrowly avoiding the brambles and muck at the sides…

Llanguicke Road is in a pretty bad state, it’s full of holes, covered in moss and gravel and just generally terrible. In fact back in June the Llangiwg Church Facebook Page posted this: “Due to the deteriation (sic) of the road and the steep gradient from Pontardawe to Llangiwg, Neath Port Talbot Council have suggested that the road is now unsuitable for motor vehicles.”

I approached an old woman walking her dog coming down the hill and asked her how much further it was, she said in total the road was almost a mile, my heart sank. She congratulated me on my effort and I pushed on…

This was the last super steep part, it dropped permanently below 20% from here but the damage had been done, I just wanted it to end…

The final stretch meant I had to drop the gears down and make a pathetic attempt at a sprint finish, it’s just the way it is…

Llangiwg Church came into view and I knew my ordeal was over, I absolutely love climbing but this was almost too much. The unknown length and grade meant that I was totally unprepared for the task and my legs really aren’t on top form at present for some reason. I was chuffed that I hadn’t given up or fallen during the many mossy slippage episodes on the way up.

I didn’t realise the road continued on past the church so I turned around and rode back down (I had to get my hats anyway I suppose) which is how I shot these photos. Llangiwg Church has a rich history going right back to the 6th century, as documented on their website, I will be climbing this beast again to have a good look around the church grounds and hopefully inside too.

Check out the Strava Segment for an idea of the general grade, it’s a bit out at times though, as much as it felt like it I doubt that it was actually 54.1% at one point, haha.

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I totally forgot to post this last week, it’s the weird house that I have posted about before. Every single time I ride past there’s some weird shit going down: wacky noises, odd smells, and always some animal magic.

The first time I went past there were a bunch of ducks hanging out with the dogs just inside the front door, and as you can see last weekend there were two dogs hanging out of the upstairs window barking at another dog in a field across the road.

Further on in the ride the air ambulance flew over us and I heard something behind me, I turned around to see that Beynon had fallen off watching it go overhead, I had a bit of a laugh then heared the same thing again as he got on and fell right back off the other side of the bike, haha, classic You’ve Been Framed material!

We happened upon three awesome hardy little horses a bit later, the one in the photo above found himself separated from his buddies so we stopped and gave him a chance to get back to them, had I pressed the shutter a fraction of a second earlier this shot would’ve been a corker.

I’ve ridden this route about five times now so I’m having a break from it for bit, as nice as it is I’m on the hunt for some new climbs, more on that tomorrow…

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Last night I went out for a solo ride at 9pm, my girlfriend was working a night shift and I thought it would be more exciting to go for a spin than it would be to sit in and watch TV.

In reality I was so desperate to try out the cleat placement on my new shoes that I was ready to burst and simply had to ride. It ended up being a lot more than what I was expecting though, I live right by the seaside and there is a promenade right along the beach so I rode on there. It’s pitch black  for much of it and absolutely dead at night so it was really nice, it’s a 5 mile run each way.

I ended up going off the path and taking in a few hills but I wish I hadn’t; I ride the fixed for commuting and fun times and the road bike to climb hills and push myself but last night I realised that I don’t really ride for no reason whatsoever anymore. There is always some kind of goal: going to work, distance, height, shopping…

I am going to continue these night rides along the front but from now on there will be no hill climbing, no sprints, no looking at the Garmin to see how fast I’m going or how far I’ve travelled. I am going to log the miles because I have a general 2012 overall milage I’d like to accomplish but these rides will be about just riding and nothing else. They’ll last as long as they last, some could be 10 miles, others maybe 20-30, who knows. Last night it was 16.5 miles.

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Today we went out at 8:30 again and did a similar route to yesterday but in reverse, there was a bit more climbing so it was more up my street. Everyone else had somewhere to be so they went about their business after 22 miles and I continued on to reach 50.

I headed up to the Rhydypandy Hill climb, I’m not really interested in competing in races but one of my goals for 2012 is to take part in the annual Swansea Wheelers Hill Climb on this 2 mile stretch of road. By the time I got to the start point it had been drizzling for a while and everywhere was a bit wet but I stopped to take off my jacket then set off.

It wasn’t long before I realised I’d taken the wrong road because I rode through the middle of a working farmyard which wasn’t there last time but I was making good time so I decided to keep going for 2 miles and see how I did time wise anyway. Unfortunately I hit a dead end at 1.58 miles, a time of 7:05 wasn’t bad so I turned around and made my way back to the start, a severely rabid dog launched itself at me in the farmyard giving me a minor heart attack, it shot up from 115bpm to 160bpm instantly according to my graph!

I got back to the start and this time took off on the correct route but at half a mile I bonked and it was all over (it took me 13:46 which is really really slow), attempting a sprint hill climb after 32 miles was a stupid idea. Visibility was severely limited, reduced to just a few metres so I took it easy up and over the mountain and under buzzing electricity pylons.

It was so foggy that I missed the turning I needed to get to a climb that @penbwl has told me about on Twitter. I ended up in Clydach which is the village where I lived from age 7-13 so I decided to ride up a mountain in Glais which I walked up back in the 80’s during one of my 24-hour famines for charity. Again I took the wrong road and hit a dead end before returning to the bottom, asking a dog walker the way and riding up the right road which was also a dead end, both were nice little climbs though.

I felt like shit from 30-50 miles, dunno why but I deffo need to get my legs back in shape!

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Went out for a short spin this morning with a few of the chaps, we left at 8:30 and headed onto The Gower peninsula, which was the UK’s first designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The sun was low so there were loads of opportunities for some classic ‘shadow photos’.

I was riding along no handed just before this when a crosswind hit and nearly sent my iPhone to a very early grave, close one!

I call this one ‘Self Portrait with Stupid Ugly Piece of Wood Right in the Middle of the Shot’, d’oh.

Sion was throughly chuffed that he managed to pass Swansea Airport (LOL) without getting sucked into the engine of a glider.

We chucked in a nice climb through ‘the lanes’ up to Sion’s house towards the end, I sprinted off to make sure I could snap this pic of them coming around the switchback near the top.

I hit Constitution Hill on my own to finish off the ride, within seconds I wish I hadn’t. Using a combination of data from my new Garmin 500 and some help from toporoute.com I am confident that the average grade of the hill is 22.5% over 300m and took me 2:22 today, it was horrible.

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Went out on a nice 50 mile route with the guys from Urban Cyclery this morning. We took on The Bwlch climb which started off nice but soon become pretty wild!

I’d never ridden this mountain before but had heard it mentioned plenty of times. ‘Bwlch’ is actually just Welsh for ‘pass’ so there are a few different Bwlch’s in Wales, this was the Bridgend one in South Wales not the far more feared Bwlch-Y-Groes in North Wales.

By the time we’d reached the foot of the mountain we’d already been climbing steadily for over 11 miles. Even though there aren’t any steep parts on The Bwlch it is about 3 miles to the top and we were feeling the burn right from the word go apart from Ross, who is a triathlete, he just waited for us at the top. As we climbed the visibility got worse and worse, I absolutely love being up a mountain when it’s like this!

I’d imagine the view is awesome but we couldn’t see a thing over the side of the road, without our blinking lights we’d have struggled to see each other too.

It levels off a bit near the top and we were able to pick up the pace a bit.

We stopped for a minute at the top and the cold hit us, I fought against the sudden gale force winds to get my jacket on. It’s really weird how crazy wind can appear from nowhere, it seems to be a regular thing when I go riding.

From left to right: Ross, me, Sam, Craig; you’ve no doubt noticed that I am built like the Ultimate Warrior.  We carried on but within a couple of minutes battling against deathly crosswinds, Craig’s story about a woman freezing to death up there and a short flurry of snow we decided to turn back.

The wind on the way back down was terrifying, I can’t stand riding whilst a windy bastard keeps punching my front wheel from under me. We rode all the way back down, Craig got cramp, we rode back to the shop then I took off on my own to do another couple of miles to hit 50, I got cramp, got home, got changed and went down the beach. The end.

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Get rid of your stupid wheels
 

Spend less time salivating over parts
 Try and make an effort to spend more time riding and less time looking at parts online. Stop convincing yourselves that you need new parts all the time, you don’t. I like looking at bike stuff as much as anyone else but it’s very easy to lose your love of riding when you keep telling yourself that your bike isn’t right. The best bikes are the ones that are being ridden every day, not the ones with the best parts.

Get a road bike
 I know I keep going on about this but I used to be like you, I thought they were wack, I thought roadies were lazy and I thought the bikes looked rubbish. But like I said in the previous point, bikes are for riding and the fact of the matter is that you can ride further and faster on a road bike, so just get one!

Stop making shitty FGFS videos
 For the love of god if you are making a fixed gear freestyle video don’t: use hip hop; make it more than 2 minutes long; put in the same trick over and over; film it whilst on a pogo stick or put company logos on it unless you are actually sponsored by them. Seriously, everyone has had enough of those videos.

Become a better rider
 One thing we should all strive to do is become stronger, safer riders. Yes, take some chances, race some buses, hop onto the pavement and have fun but at the same time use every ride to hone your technique, especially if you ride brakeless.

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I got the train up to Cardiff today to ride with Paul and Sanders, I had a Garmin 500 computer for Christmas and wanted to ride up some hills so that I could watch the % grade display and the chance to ride with someone else was not to be missed after weeks of solo missions.

We took on some nice climbs right from the off, the gradients recorded by the 500 seem to be all over the shop though. The graph for this first one (6 miles in) says 20% max but it was almost certainly steeper than that at times and felt much more when trying to negotiate my way through a family of deaf idiots on a hairpin. I’d deffo like to ride this one again, it was pretty challenging.

Next up was the little known Glyntaff Crematorium climb (11 miles in), a chap by the name of oldwelshman told me about it at the Tour of Britain and made it out to be a killer. I rode it a few months back and I agreed with him, it was incredibly hard, in fact it was the only time I’d ridden up something so steep that I almost gave up. Today it didn’t feel anywhere near as difficult and left me slightly heartbroken. Data from the previous ride (from Endomondo on an iPhone exported into Garmin Training Centre) says the steepest part is 47% but today the data says 22% which definitely isn’t right, I’m guessing that both are wrong and the actual gradient is somewhere between those two numbers, I’m confident that it’s over 25% though.

After a stop at Costa in Caerphilly for some vanilla bullshits we hit the Category 1 climb from the ToB (20 miles in). This one hit us much harder than it would have if we hadn’t stopped, it’s a tough climb but last time I rode it three times and didn’t struggle like I did today. Whilst riding up this the gradient display on the Garmin went up to 42% then started freaking out and hit 249% at one point, I don’t remember doing a loop-the-loop.

It was only a 35 mile ride but it was nice, my road bike is starting to feel the effects of winter though, I really need to strip him down and clean him before it’s too late. It’s just too bloody cold to wash it with a bucket and sponge. I’ll at the very least give the chain some TLC this week.

As for the gradient accuracy of the Garmin 500, I’m not convinced yet. I need to ride the same hills a few times and compare the data I suppose.

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I keep a close eye on the weather reports every day running up to the weekend at this time of year, the nights are dark and freezing so good weather on Saturday and/or Sunday are essential for getting in some miles. I used to commute about 4 miles each way to work so even though I wasn’t putting in huge mileage through the winter I was doing about 50 miles through the week and more on the weekends. Now that I live in town I’m doing about 5 miles through the week and really rely on the weekend.

WeatherPro is very reliable and assured me that both Saturday and Sunday were going to be dry, I decided to do the Christmas thing on Sat and ride on Sun so I set my alarm for 9am in the hope that it wouldn’t be too cold by the time I left at 10ish. I had a quick scan of Facebook on my phone when the alarm went off and was met by this…

Instantly my burning desire to ride was snuffed out. I HATE falling on ice, 3 years ago I came off and spent the next 6 weeks in a cast, 2 years ago I came off again and did my hip a mischief, last year I didn’t take any chances and got through the winter fall free. The thing about falling off when you’re wearing jeans, a hoody and a coat is that you are relatively well protected, a small rip in some jeans is ok, they still work fine but there’s no way I’m going to take a chance, slip out on some black ice and tear any of my beloved expensive lycra cause that stuff ain’t very resilient!

I’m sick to death of winter already and it’s barely even begun, I can’t wait until the spring!

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On Saturday I donned my new gimp outfit and hit the road on the same route I did a couple of weeks back. The plan was to ride it with Sion and Paul on Sunday but the forecast was terrible so I went on my own knowing that Sunday probably wouldn’t happen (it didn’t).

You may remember the weird house I mentioned last time, well I decided I needed to snap a photo of it for you. As I approached I started thinking about what might happen to me if the shithole was actually inhabited by ‘humans’ who may catch me taking photos of their ‘home’. As I got close I detected a weird smell, I’d like to say it was the smell of death but it was more an odd sort of plasticky kind of deal; whatever it was there was absolutely no way I was going to stop right outside because something was going on in there and there were some goats and ducks staring at me from the front door.

The road is relatively steep going past it but I decided it was ‘safe’ to pull over a bit further up and steal a sneaky photo. I unclipped and struggled to take my phone out of the ziplock bag I keep it in when it’s in my jersey pocket. My heart was pounding, all I could think about was the Klopeks. I shot a photo, no good, I switched the HDR on, shot another photo then BANG! BANG! BANG! There was someone in the house! And they had a hammer!!! I struggled to get my phone back in the ziplock bag I keep it in when it’s in my jersey pocket. I turned around knowing that clipping back in on a hill in the spinniest gear was probably going to spell the end for me, I slipped the first time and could practically feel the psycho’s breath down the back of my neck, CLICK, I was in and spinned off as fast as I could. The house is behind the tree in the photo above, I’ll try and be more of a man next time, sorry guys.

A nice view of Ammanford I think, I seriously have no idea where I’m going when I ride, I can’t even find my way using a map. I know at the bottom of this mountain I’m in Ammanford so I just assume that any buildings at the bottom are there.

When I reached the amazing spot I gushed over in the other post I decided that I would ride through it with one hand whilst filming with the other. It took a lot longer to ride through than I thought it would. Riding up hill, one handed in the freezing cold for two and a half minutes wasn’t all I’d hoped it would be. The footage is shaky but full of amazing spooky sheep, in fact it is just like The Silence of the Lambs 2 and just like The Silence of the Lambs 2 it doesn’t exist because I got a new iPhone 4s today and wiped the old phone without backing it up properly, d’oh.

There are loads of crows around the back end of the Black Mountain just before you get to the Devil’s Elbow on this route, it’s great seeing and hearing them going about their business as you ride along. There are plenty of birds of prey around these parts too, one landed very near to me at one point but I obviously couldn’t get my phone out of the bloody zip-lock bag in time to shoot the bugger. So, when I spotted a particularly cool one circling off in the distance I stopped and did everything I could to take a nice photo so that I could find out what it was when I got home. I had no trouble identifying it as a common buzzard from the best of the photos which you can see above, haha.

I know this ride sounds quite exciting but it was actually horrible, it was bloody freezing and some complete twat tried to run me over right at the start. I pulled out to take the lane when approaching a traffic island and heard him accelerating so turned around and he was right up my arse, usually I’d stand my ground but this dude wasn’t slowing down, he forced me right into the curb and I could see him laughing as he sped off. The worst part about episodes like this is not being able to catch up with them and cut their balls off.

There was a lot of ice up on the mountains which meant I had to ride with great caution most of the time too which isn’t very exciting, winter is well and truly here folks. After a few more close calls with disgruntled Christmas shopping drivers I decided to use the bike path for the last few miles, unfortunately it was full of dim-witted football fans on the way to a match. By the time I got home I was in a foul mood and felt like shit, another classic ride in the bag.

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