Windsurfing in the estuary at Ynyslas
I’ve just got back from a nice little windsurf session in the estuary here at Ynyslas. Ivor, our local katabatic wind was up to his usual tricks with a decent NE wind funbelling down through the valley at up to 25 knots. And this was despite the fact that the forecast was for winds of 5-6 knots. Lovely.
The wind wasn’t quite up to its usual strength, but it is still pretty early in the year so I think Ovir was just warming up. Hopefully we’ll get some really good winds in the spring.
With the sun shining it was pretty warm out there as well. I had my 5/3mm wetsuit on and boots and a hood but if anything I was a little too hot whilst on the water.
There was something going on at the visitor centre car park though. Four police cras were in attendance and the car park was closed off with ‘Crime Scene’ tape all around it and a police officer at either end preventing anyone from entering it. Anyone know what’s happened?
Only one month to go until the Mawddach Goldrush so I thought I’d better get some longer rides in. That was the plan for Saturday, but the surf was going off so I had to go for a surf at Ynyslas first. The surf turned out to be pretty much as good as it gets here, but I still had a ride to do so I was soon out of the sea and heading off for the hills.
The Mawddach Goldrush is a 3 lap race with each lap being about 10 miles in length. According to my GPS readings from last year (where I did a single lap as part of a team) the climb involved in that 10 miles was 1185 feet. So, the total for all 3 laps should be around 30 miles with 3500 or so feet of climbing.
My route today went from the sea along the flat roads across Borth Bog to Tre-Ddol. A nice 4 mile warm up and then straight up the beast of a climb behind Tre-Ddol. It is always a struggle but my legs felt tired today so I was pleased to even make it up without having to get off my bike. It really is quite steep mind you, just take a look at the topography on the graph below and the steepness of that first hill.
Today's Training Ride
After the initial climb I headed off towards Artists Valley and as you can see it leveled off for a while before I had what is essentially a 6 mile climb up through Artist’s Valley. This is always quite a slog and today was no different. The conditions however were perfect, no wind, not too warm, sunny and with great views down the valley to the Dyfi Estuary. I eventually made it to the top and then headed off down the MX trails towards the mines and then along some more MX trails through the forest to the Nant y Moch road. From here I looped back up once again to the high point above Angler’s Retreat before dropping back down into Artists Valley via ‘Al’s Descent ‘ which was riding really well. The bottom part of the descent wasn’t great though as it had been pretty cut up by recent forestry work.
I then carried on down through Artists Valley. With 20 miles under by tyres I was now beginning to feel pretty tired so even the small climbs up through the woods were pretty hard. Thankfully though from here on it was just a matter of two little climbs and then a descent back to the flat roads to the sea. The final 4 miles along the flat were OK, but I was certainly glad that I didn’t have another hill to climb.
The total distance was 28 miles with 3108 feet of climbing. Not quite as far or as much climbing as the Mawddach Goldrush and quite a lot of it was on the road so I’m still going to be struggling this time next month. Hopefully a couple more longish rides will get me in better shape for it though.
Back at home after a bath and some dinner and my legs are pretty tired, my knee hurts and my back is sore. I think I’ll take it easy tomorrow, but with only 1 month left I need to get some training in!
