With the Mawddach Goldrush looming on Sunday I’m now taking it easy for the second half of this week so that I’m fresh for it. I did however have to do some bike maintenance earlier this week and whilst at it did a wiper seal service on my forks and a rear shock air can service too.
So, yesterday I felt that the bike needed a bit of a shake down before Sunday so went for a ride around the Pendam Trail at Nant yr Arian. All felt fine with the bike, but I’m not getting any faster. Last time I did the Pendam Trail it took me 40 minutes and 42 seconds, which was pretty slow in comparison to my best ever of 37:22. Yesterday I was slower still at 41:05.
It was pretty windy out there which may not have helped, and I did go to circuits and swimfit the night before so wasn’t well rested. However, it doesn’t look like I will be breaking any records at the Mawddach Goldrush on Sunday!
Pendam Trail - March 3rd
After the first lap of the Pendam Trail I then went around the lake again and did some geocache maintenance on one of my Watery Wales 1 series of gecoaches before fiddling with the suspension settings on my bike and doing the Hippity Hop section again. A nice afternoon out in the hills, but I’m not as fast as I should be!
It’s a shame the weekend is only 2 days long, especially with the weather we’ve been having.
Saturday was glorious and we had a fairly lazy day in the garden. It’s not often that you can spend all day outside in shorts and a ‘T’-shirt around here, and over 12 hours in the sun seems quite exhausting.
Sunday was the same though. I was up early so did some website design work before pottering about in the garden again. Impi then turned up to go windsurfing but there wasn’t really enough wind so I managed to persuade him to borrow my bike and go for a mountain bike ride instead.
Lazy days in the garden
I was going to do a longish ride today but as I had Impi with me and he hadn’t really done much mountain biking before I thought a gentle ride around the Pendam Trail would be sufficient. It was certainly hot up there and lots of other people had the same idea, but the trails were nice and dry and riding really well. I think a trip up there one morning nice and early before it gets warm is on the cards to see if I can beat my record for a lap of the Pendam Trail is in order whilst the weather lasts.
Impi seemed to enjoy himself. He did fall off on the first little bend but picked himself back up and was fine from there on in. He did do a little better than Jay on his first attempt at the Pendam Trail!. I don’t think he’ll be buying a bike anytime soon, but you never know!
Anna and Morgan went to the theatre to see ‘Room on the Broom’ which sounded as though it was good. Once back at home I paid a quick visit to the estuary which was heaving with people and then painted the shed.
All followed by dinner in the garden and the (not particularly pleasant) thoughts of ‘back to work tomorrow’. I think the government should be able to announce spontaneous bank holidays for days like this!
With less than a week to go until the Dyfi Enduro we decided that this weeks night ride would be a little different. Rather than just doing a loop around the usual trails, Martyn suggested sessioning a few of the bits of singletrack on the Pendam Trail.
Dave, Martyn, Bernd, Myles and myself met at the Pendam car park and we started off with a ride up to the Hippity Hop section which we then did 3 times in a row. The first time was quite relaxed, I went a little quicker the second time but then pushed a little too hard the 3rd time around and actually went slower.. Being smooth and controlled is the key!
We then headed off around the lakes and up to the Drunken Druid section which we did twice, before heading down the High as a Kite section to the visitor centre. We then went back up the hill and did High as a kite a second time before doing the Italian Job section and heading off back around the lake, to Syfydrrin, up the final climb and then one more time down the Hippity Hops.
All good fun. The rain stayed away and although I don’t think it helped with my technique on any of these sections it did make a change from the usual night rides and Myles took some photos too. The next ride for me will be the Dyfi Enduro on Sunday.
Al on High as a Kite
Bernd. High as a Kite
Dave, High as a kite
Martyn, High as a Kite
I had another action packed weekend here in Wales.
Now that I have a new bike, my brother Jay came to visit so that he could borrow my old bike and come out for a couple of mountain-bike rides with me. He used to be a fairly handy cyclist, racing on and off the road, but hadn’t been on a bike for a few years. I didn’t expect that to hold him back too much as it wasn’t that long ago that I hadn’t been on a bike for around 10 years, so I thought I’d know how he felt. My first ride back on a bike was around the northern half of the Syfyddrin Trail, but I thought I’d make it easy for Jay and start with the Pendam Trail on Saturday.
We started off OK, a nice easy ride along the first few bits of single track from Pendam and then up the first small climb. Jay was lagging behind and puffing and panting a bit but looked OK. Next up was another little bit of single-track followed by a short steep rocky climb. Jay lost traction on this bit and had to get off, and then at the next junction, just short of two miles into the ride he had to stop to throw-up! Nice one Jay, I think you may have lost some fitness!
In all fairness, he did get back on the bike afterwards and finished the ride, albeit at quite a slow pace. Only 6.5 miles in total, but at least he got around in one piece!
Just goes to show how quickly you can loose some fitness though.. Use it or Lose it! It doesn’t take that much to keep it though, I hadn’t been on a bike for over 10 years but obviously keep relatively fit from windsurfing, surfing, and even gardening. It took Jay 1hr 24 to get around the Pendam Trail whereas my first attempt a couple of weeks after getting back on a bike took 42 minutes. Just goes to show, you don’t need to do that much to maintain some fitness, but stop altogether and its a slippery slope.
Jay re-visits his breakfast
Seeing as James asked for a daily updates as far as my attempts to get fit are concerned, here are the stats from my Mountain Bike Ride around the Pendam Trail at Nant-yr-Arian today.
First the route itself, My Speed and Heart Rate graph… Max 172bpm once again! And the summary stats.
After the first lap I then did another lap of the most northerly loop, and on the way checked in on a couple of my geocaches to make sure they were OK. Both caches were fine, but the tree hiding the cache at Blaenmelindwr has been felled and a few people have had problems with the coordinates for the cache at Syfydrin, so I took some new readings with my Forerunner 305 which has a better GPS receiver than my old eTrex.
I was impressed with the performance of the Foreunner, as it seemed to keep GPS reception even through the forested parts of the trail and looking at the route in Google Earth, the trail made by the second lap was perfectly on top of the first time around so accuracy seems to be good… Shame my fitness isn’t quite up to the same standards!
I’ve had another action packed weekend here in Mid Wales. Enjoying the best that the area has to offer, all thanks to Anna who of course had Morgan to contend with on Saturday whilst I enjoyed myself.
Steve arived at around 9am and we headed off to Pendam for a mountain bike ride out to Angler’s Retreat and back. I had done this route a couple of times at night whilst following others from the Ystwyth Cycling Club, but hadn’t done it in the daylight or found the route on my own.
The route finding was fine and if anything it was easier at night, but the route itself was good with a good variety of surfaces and technical difficulty and not too much sustained climbing. It was pretty cold and wet up there and the wind was picking up so we only did the one route of about 14 miles so that we could head back down to the beach for a windsurf session. Steve managed to fall off a couple of time and I managed to find one really deep (probably about waist deep) puddle that I cycled through. Steve saw me disappear into it and thought better of trying to ride through it himself. needless to say I got pretty wet.
Back at sea-level and there was enough wind for a decent windsurf session at Ynyslas. I tried out my new wheel-barrow as my previous one has rusted away and met Steve, Impi and a guy from the south coast over there. We had a good session in what is now beginning to feel like winter conditions.
This part of Wales really does have a lot to offer for those who like the outdoor lifestyle and a bit of adventure.
Anna and Morgan meanwhile had been busy sorting out Morgans toys and cooking soup.
