The main subject matter on all the UK road cycling blogs I follow this weekend was the weather, I went out on Saturday but Sunday was just too grim for my liking.

I went out with Huw, he’s in Uni here from Bournemouth and wanted to ride The Bwlch because his grandparents live near there. Although it was dry the wind was ridiculous, it was howling right into our faces for the entire 25 miles from Swansea to the top of the mountain.

The 4 mile climb is no biggie usually but the gale had me out of the saddle at times just to force my way through. Huw really felt it, Bournemouth is pretty flat apparently so he got a bit of a baptism of fire, probably for the best because it’ll be much more memorable. My first ride up there was in less than perfect conditions too but will always be the one I think about.

It was so miserable that even the sheep couldn’t be arsed to moved when we rode past them, it was that baaaaaaaad.

This sums up Sunday…

Today was my first proper ride since my collarbone plate removal operation five weeks ago. I had assumed after all this time off the bike I would return to a dramatic weather change but it was 5°C when we left at 7:30am. I was going to go out with just a jersey but had to go for both arm and leg warmers as well as a thermal base layer, gutted.

Just as we had regained feeling in our fingers and toes Beynon went and got himself a puncture, he swapped tubes, pumped up with a mini pump and it went straight back down again, didn’t check inside the tyre for glass, see. Luckily JT had a cO2 canister thing and another tube so we were on our way after too much delay. I’m deffo getting some cO2!

I was eager on my first climb in 6 weeks and shot up it pretty sharpish, it felt pretty good. We passed a TT race around about here, those guys are gruuuuuumpy and I didn’t get any nods, waves or owt. So many of the dudes racing were FAT! They had the aero bike, the aero suit, the aero helmet and a fucking great big barrel where their belly should be. I can’t hold a good pace for toffee but there is no way those guys are faster than I am, maybe I will enter a TT but I’ll have to fashion a helmet out of a chip shop cone.

The run up to the Rhigos is pretty cool, you get a good look at the climb for a while before it really ramps up. JT is fairly new to the road bike thing and started to struggle a bit around here, I held back with him because I was feeling a bit myself. It’s amazing how quickly you lose your form when you are just pissing about on the bike path a couple of times a week.

Up and down the Rhigos and we stopped in Treorchy for snacks. I had a pack of pickled onion Space Raiders and a whole pack of digestive cream biscuits, both from the menu of champions.

Next up was The Bwlch, I’d never done it from this side before and didn’t want to push it too hard because I’d felt a bit of cramp trying it’s best  in my thighs. Again I held back for a bit with JT but inside I was like Scrappy Doo at the sight of a ghost, haha. I took off, caught up with Beynon then zipped off as fast I could manage. I was making fairly good time considering how pathetic my legs were feeling then something horrible happened. The chap above overtook me, I have never ever, not even once, been overtaken on a climb before but this guy rode past like it was nothing (which it wouldn’t have been normally), at least he was polite and said hello as he passed, the bastard.

At the top we waited for JT to catch up, the view was nice. Click the photo above to view it larger.

JT arrived pretty soon, he was hurting but kept on truckin’ like a trooper.

This is painted on The Bwlch, ‘Welcome to the Valleys’ may sound nice but in reality it is the Welsh equivalent of ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’.

The tiny little dot off in the distance is Beynon, eager to hit the decent. I rolled down it at 30mph trying my best to avoid any danger. I’m not supposed to ride for at least another 3 weeks but I won’t tell the doctor if you don’t.

My power was diminishing, JT’s was in the minuses and Beynon seemed fine during the last 20 miles. We got there in the end and I rounded the ride up to 66.6 miles (4400ft of climbing) by going past my pad and up the road a bit before stopping the Garmin. You gotta round up to a decent number!

Check out the ride data on Strava or Ride with GPS.

I went out with Sion today to try out the new road bike, he got himself a shiny new Trek a couple of weeks back too so we were the coolest guys on the road fo sho.

We took a run up The Bwlch and certainly weren’t expecting snow! In fact we got all kinds of weather today, it started of just grey, then was sunny, then a sprinkling of rain, then we hit this snow, wind on the way back down the mountain, more sun then it started to hail when I got in, wacky.

The Bwlch looked amazing with a covering of snow, luckily the roads were free of ice so we tapped out a nice pace and took in the scenery.

There were some sheep hanging out at the side of the road, they totally believed that they were invisible with their new found camouflage wooly jackets.

A lovely v-shaped valley, no doubt shaped by a glacier or some shit back in the ice age (not based on any scientific fact or research and almost certainly wrong!)

At the top we stopped to put our multiple warmers back on and eat some Clif bars then hit the descent, we passed loads of guys coming up which was cool, it’s very rare I see many people out.

I didn’t get any neck pain until 48 miles which is great, I think this new bike fits me a bit better, though my saddle was a bit wrong and hurt like hell, that’s easily fixed though.

Check out the route on Strava.

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.