Ik heb twee mooie bike tochten gemaakt, waarvan een heel kort verslagje hieronder, in het Engels want dan kan ik mijn verslagje aan Engelse vriendin makkelijk hergebruiken
Het was echt weer ontzettend gaaf, echt mountainbiken zoals mountainbiken bedoeld is. En m'n nieuwe bandjes (Ritchey Crossmax) deden 't geweldig.
On Thursday I went mountainbiking, first into that small valley opposite Tan-y-Graig and then up the Sarn Helen Roman Road, all the way to the farms behind the Maen Medoc and back over Fan Gyhirych: wonderful mountainbiking! (although I got more or less told off for that by the man in the Brecon Visitor Information Centre because he knew that the land owner of Fan Gyhirych doesn't like people to walk on his paths let alone mountainbike on them...).
The Mount-Snowdon-Mountainbike-plan evaporated the moment Izenka found out it would actually take around 3 hours simply to get there. So I resorted to the initial bold plan of cycling up Pen-y-Fan which I did on Sunday morning. I went intentionally early, not only to be around Izenka for a longer time (she would sleep during my first biking-hours) but also because I had noticed on Friday that the track up the Fan is forbidden for cyclists...
I left the cottage on my bike at 8 am, cycled up the valley across Tan-y-Graig, up and over Fan Frynych, then keeping to the right (south) along the cliff heads towards Storey Arms where I came hurtling down the hills onto the parking place, in front of some really amazed people
Then with nobody looking I crossed the gate and started cycling up the Pen-y-Fan track. I had to walk major parts though, especially where the track was either too steep or strewn with large boulders that on that slope made cycling impossible. But it was tremendous fun to cycle the steep hillwalking-path and arrive cycling on the col south of Corn Du. I passed Corn Du to its east then made it up to Pen-y-Fan with a bit of walking but mostly cycling to meet a *really* amazed group of hikers at the misty and stormy hill-top. The hairy bit came right after that where I went down off Pen-y-Fan at its other side, east in the direction of Cribyn: scrambling down the large blocks of rock at the top, with my bike on my back and a full-force gale trying to blow it off my back and me off the blocks of rock was a bit scary, and then after that I had to downhill the slope between Pen-y-Fan and Cribyn that was so steep that I hardly dared to remain seated on my bike, afraid to topple over head-first. But with my brakes jammed continuously I made it down sliding and skidding, then passed Cribyn via the small path to its south-east to arrive in the windy gap at the top of the Neuadd Reservoir valley's Roman Road. Next it was down the Roman Road and then north into the forests to the east of the Talybont Reservoir, now all pleasantly downhill. From Talybont-on-Usk I took the tarmac back via Brecon to Tan-y-Graig, with a bit of disappointment in how much uphill that last bit actually was and that I was indeed rather worn out by that time
