Artists Valley and Beyond

I gave myself most of the day off yesterday as Steve was heading to Wales and wanted to go for a longish bike ride.

We did the Artists Valley and beyond loop that I did a few weeks ago. Now, I’ve lost a bit of weight since then and have probably improved my fitness a bit, Steve on the other hand hasn’t been out that much on a bike and said he’d put on some weight. As we all know, it is your power to weight ratio that really counts on a bike, especially when it comes to going up hill and on the first hill it showed.

The first hill is a killer, the climb behind Tre Ddol and it beat Steve! I’m not surprised really as it was his first attempt at that hill as it is really steep. I think Steve had vowed to lose some weight and get stronger by the time he’d got to the top.

We managed the whole 35 mile round trip in good shape. The forecast was for sunny spells but they didn’t materialise. In fact, we got soaked in some torrential downpours and it got pretty cold at one point and started sleeting. Again, not unexpected up at Angler’s Retreat as that place is cold and bleak at the best of times.

There were no major mishaps or mechanicals and even the cows, bulls and mad dogs didn’t deter us from our route.

I felt OK for the ride and if I can keep up some training will hopefully be OK to at least complete the Isle of Man E2E in September which is about 11 miles longer than the ride we did yesterday but only has a few hundred more metres of climbing.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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