Real Ale Wobbling Day 2.

The second day started much slower than the first. We were all aching a little from the previous days riding and it looked quite wet and about to rain outside.
Eventually we got out of bed and down for breakfast but only just! :-)

Here we are at our parked cars in the Llanwrtyd Wells town. William is on the left who we happened to meet. Susan's other friends and him were planning on going kayaking on the second day because of the heavy overnight rain. He said that there were several people who weren't going anywhere this morning because of the previous nights partying.
We decided to make our own route up this morning along the second days cycle and see how we got on to decide how long we could cycle for.
While we were getting ready an elderly woman came out of her house where we were parked and asked us if we wanted to come in for a cup of tea. We politely turned her down but it was a lovely moment.

Once we started to ride out of town it started to rain. Fortunately it didn't start off too cold because of the heavy cloud cover. There was a heavy mist and fog over the hills though. At one point in the morning there was a very long climb up a winding trail. It was quite knackering cycling up the hill and I had to stop once before getting to the top. We must have cycled for 20 minutes or so uphill without stopping.
Once I got to the top I was quite out of breath but my legs felt fine. I made a comment that if I was to die here I would be very happy. After all I was on my mountain bike in the hills with two women. Can't think of a better way to go myself. :-)

There were several streams that we had to cross today. Here's Wiki riding though one of them while I wait my turn.

And here I am making my own splash.

At one point we went right into the forest along a very muddy and steep descent. It was very dark in the forest, but not quite as dark as this picture makes out. At some points in the descent we had to walk, Susan however stayed on her bike and gingerly pushed/walked her bike down.

Susan took several pictures in this dark forest but unfortunately most of them didn't come out very well. We hardly saw anyone out today, probably because of the climate, but there were also casualties from the previous nights partying.

After the forest descent we managed to get a little lost on the tracks. It also started to rain a lot more as well. We were still having a good time in the rain. I remember this point as we had to walk up a series of very steep drops and at one point we were all laughing at how tired and wet we all were. Laughing in that insane way. :-) We'll all remember this moment as one of the many highlights of the weekend. Despite being wet, tired and a little lost we were all having a great time and felt totally alive.

Wiki and Susan trying to decide where we were and where to go next. Just after this we started to cycle up the trail behind them. I remember feeling quite exhilarated while cycling uphill as it started to get windier on the exposed path. The wind and rain made me yell out to the sky "Come on, give me your worst!", at this point Susan noted while following me that it then dropped a noticeable few degrees in temperature and also started to rain much heavier.
Shortly after this there was a fantastic long descent down to back where we entered the course. As I was descending I was expecting to catch up with Susan but didn't make much ground to her. She later confessed to me that she didn't use her brakes while going downhill either! We didn't expect to come back here and by now it was 1.00pm so we decided to call it a day as we were all a little tired and very wet and cold.

Here I am trying a steep descent. As you can see I did bottle it about half way down but then managed to regain my composure and continue to the bottom and all the happier at having done so.

Just after we got back we got changed into drier clothes in some public toilets. Not my best moment but I was thankful to be able to dry off a little more and not be in freezing cold clothes.
As soon as we started to settle down in a pub it started to sleet and then snow quite heavily. The hills around the town were covered in snow, we were quite relived that we decided to come in when we did, otherwise we would have been in the snow on the hills. Mind you at the same time some part of me wished that I could have been out there because it would have made the ride even more 'fun'. I'm sure we would have laughed about being caught in the snow as well. :-)

Finally here's the weather conditions that we had to contend with on the way home in Wales. You know you're in the welsh valleys when the welsh is above the english on the road signs. I'm just following Susan's car with her kayak perched on the top of her car. At least the snow helped clean a lot of the mud off my bike.

I had such a fantastic time this weekend, it's one of those weekends that I'll always remember. It felt like a holiday as we were in a country where I didn't understand the road signs. :-)
It's weekends like this that really make me feel alive and so thankful that I spend my time doing that things that I enjoy doing. For me life just doesn't get much better than this.