Real Ale Wobbling Day 1.

I was finally at the Real Ale Wobble event this weekend. It has been a long time coming and I've been really looking forward to this even since I was entered into it earlier this year. The weather was originally predicted to be heavy rain and light winds on both days, but fortunately for us it turned out to be just overcast on Saturday, but much worse on Sunday.

The idea behind the event is to do some mountain biking while drinking real ale along the course. The event is held over two days and non competitive.

This is the start of the event at the local school sports hall in Llanwrtyd Wells.
I'd never seen so many keen mountain bikers in one place. There were 600 entrants this year.

Here we are at the first check point on Saturday morning. All looking very clean and also full of energy. Susan on the left and Wiki on the right were both insane enough to join me. It was originally Susan's idea to do the event. We figured that she's the most insane and Wiki the was the fittest and me somewhere in the middle.

This is about half way up the first steady climb. both Wiki and I managed to set a good early pace up the relatively wide start.

There were a few of Susan's friends on the same event which we had a good time with. The tall guy in Orange was called William as well, and he was obviously the loudest of a good bunch of friends!

The trail soon narrowed and also turned into a series of quite deep mud pools that we had to cycle though. At some points the water came up to my knee! It was quite good fun to cycle though the water, if you can call it cycling.
At one point Susan had someone following her and all she could hear was the guy yelling at her not to slow down or stop because they would then have to wade though the water and mud.

Here's an example of some of the trails with very steep drops on one side. All the more exciting to ride long. :-)

Some of the fantastic scenery that we saw all weekend. The views were quite breath taking at times and made the up hill cycling all the more worth it.

Susan with Wiki behind leading a small pack of riders down a slight drop.

At one point after a good downhill ride over slate and stones there was a sharp turn left up a very very steep rocky incline. No one managed to cycle up the hill despite a few attempts. No one made it more than a yard or two up here before having to walk.

Eventually we stopped for a snack break about half way around the course. Fortunately we had arranged a packed lunch at the B&B that we were staying in. At this point I had fallen over my handlebars once at a steep drop. There was a fallen tree at the base of a drop and I was concentrating on ducking under the tree. Unfortunately there was a wheel sized hole just before the tree which flipped me over my bike. I only grazed my right hand but it drew a bit of blood, made worse by the mud and water everywhere. My first aid kit came in use today! I wasn't the only one to fall before the tree either, but I did make it look good by going over my handlebars.

We did more climbing after the break around the side of some of the hills. You can see some riders along the path in this picture.

At the very top of this hill were some boggy grass lands. It was quite breezy and very difficult to ride along what was barely a path. We had to stop and walk several sections as it was much to wet and muddy. Susan said that this part of the course she found the most difficult because of the wind and difficulty of the track. You can see her in the background here.

Just over the top of the grass lands there was a steep drop with lots of slippery grass and mud. You can see Wiki and me standing on the edge. After the initial steep section which we walked we had lots of fun cycling down the rest of the slippery grass. I had such a smile on my face coming down as I went sidewards several times, but held it together without falling.

Finally at the first beer stop! There were only two beer stops on the course. We were expecting a beer stop at the top of every hill but in the end there were only two, which disappointed Susan and I.

Finally at the second beer stop near the end of the course.

You can see the amount of mud and grass that my bike had collected on the first day.

We finally got back just before it started to get dark at 4.30. Because of the delay in registering we didn't start till 11.00. Five hours of cycling was quite enough for all of us. We were so happy to get out of the wet and muddy clothes in our hotel. We only had a bath in our ensuite. It took me two baths of water to clean the mud off my legs!

In the evening we had dinner at our own B&B and then went into the town to meet up with Susan's friends. There was a very good live cover band in a tent set-up behind a pub. We spent most of the evening dancing the night away and drinking beer. Because we had to cycle the following morning we didn't get very drunk but all had a great time listening to the music and chatting the night away.