Classy video for your delectation and delight...
Wednesday 1st June: Decided to try to cycle all the way back from Swansea to Cardiff in one day. This was a journey I'd previously completed in two days. A big, fat 54 miles, give or take. Wasn't sure if I'd be able do it. I remembered every hill I'd climbed/pushed the bike up on the way in and they'd felt big. However, I had two incentives:
1. To get back to Cardiff by Thurs am to leave my bike at Journo-Tom's so I could head to London for training with PI (summer job).
2. As a challenge to self. By my reckoning, anyone who can count eating spaghetti whilst cycling as one of their lifelong accomplishments should be able to cycle a paultry 54 miles.
So, taking into account two days 'rest' in Swansea and early-ish nights I set off at 9.15am - in freshly laundered clothes, I might add. The night before I'd taken most of my belongings to the launderette. I was spotless and ready to go.
Leaving Swansea was easy enough. I remembered the route the three musketeers had guided me along, it was ok to find. Got a bit stuck in Port Talbot (read 'P'tal-bert' if you want to pronounce it proper South Walian, like) and, due to a lack of Iphone, I had to resort to the old fashioned method of just plain old asking people.
P'tal-bert's a funny place. Looked a bit grim from the back streets I was travelling along, but then - as is frequently the case in the smaller places - people were just friendly and interested.
Anyone who has ever told you that nothing in life is free is, quite frankly, wrong. I saw this.
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| Gutted that my panniers were already full... |
I took extra care on the paths, especially the wooden sleeper type bridges but Parc Slip had a few tricks up it's sleeve and was just biding its time. I decided to eat there. It was quiet and I was hungry, so it seemed the ideal place. Following a meal of soup, pear, brazil nuts and rock cake I was almost out of Parc Slip when I stopped to open a gate. Extending left leg out onto the grass I realised (all too late) that it wasn't solid grass, but a fairly deep ditch, which I was sinking into. My leg disappeared to above the knee, the bike went over as I exhaled with a definitely girly type squeal. More of a keel than a slip, but there it was.
I re-gained my composure, went through the gate and cycled off. Behind me Parc Slip tittered quietly to itself and stroked its cat.
The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. As I knew I had extra miles to go I just got my head down and got on with it. I guess that's what serious cyclists do, don't allow themselves to be distracted. It was quite exhilarating, hairing along watching the miles clocking up - though admittedly, I was distraught to look at my mile-o-meter three hours in and see I'd only clocked up 12 miles. Luckily, the computer thing was wrong, map said I'd done 23! POW - Take that technology, you're rubbish.
The next event was a leisure centre in Thomastown. I suddenly found myself in desperate need of a public convenience, probably due to my enthusiastic fruit consumption over the previous two days. I couldn't find a loo but spotted a leisure centre. Cycling up to it, there was absolutely nowhere I could leave my bike securely tied, so I resorted to wheeling it into the centre, propping it against the counter and ordering the woman to 'tell me where the toilet is now please' luckily, she did. In fairness the sight of an unkempt, bedraggled, dirty coated woman with mud up her left leg probably acted as a good incentive.
The wildlife was out in force, as usual. Along the route a pair of jays, which was a treat and after Thomastown I happened across the Sickly Blackbird of Tonyrefail.
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| Sickly Blackbird. |
Following some wild guess work (and a quick squint on't t'internet) a conclusion was reached: A medium sized Welsh woman in a blue coat who cycles 54 (ish) miles in one day will most likely use 50-60 calories an hour...that's in addition to her usual daily usage. So, 55 x 8 = 445. We then had a discussion about bike/accessories weight calculating that:
bike = 14 kgs / lock = 2 kgs / panniers full = 20 kgs / camera + helmet + cycling shoes + clothes worn = 1.5 kgs / water carried = 1.5 kgs
Therefore total estimated weight of bike and bits is prob about 39 kgs. Add that to weight of medium sized woman and that will probably equate to a few extra calories burnt up.
Anyway, we celebrated by going out and stuffing our faces with a range of Brazilian style goodies. Despite the fact that the restaurant was sandwiched between a grubby old pub and a dodgy looking PRIVATE SHOP (it was capitalised), whose email address was www.privatexxx.com I mean, honestly....why not just come clean and just write 'a plethora of erotic decadence' or something equally silly over the door? Moving on, I had fish stew and rice and wine and stuff, so that was probably my calorie intake sorted. We ate well and meandered home with full bellies and a sense of humour fully intact, probably due to just having put the world to rights.
Headed back into London today - Thursday. It was a bizarre thing, the route I had just spent two and a half weeks wandering along was eaten up in two and a half hours by British Rail and I didn't see a thing. I actually felt a strange sadness for those lost miles, the people met, the sights seen, every single turn of the pedal which had got me to Swansea and back to Cardiff. I'd been robbed. Reaching London was a bit of a culture shock. The noise, the people, the smell, the dirty scratchy thing on the tube... I also forgot which train station I was heading to to get to my destination - how could I manage to forget a route I'd taken numerous times before, the last only three weeks earlier? 'That's it', I thought to myself, much as I love it, my time living in London is over.
So, plan:
-Training (this weekend with French-Demps and Portu-Guy)
- Back to Cardiff (collect lovely bike)
- Train up North (have tickets to Take That)
- Isle Of Man (see brother)
- Head South (in time to start work on the 9th July)
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