Digression to Rhayader 2012
Words by Vess
Earlier this year, Matt hatched plans for a Welsh cycling trip for both road and MTB riders. Two teams, two routes, for two days, meeting for one night's wild camping in the middle of nowhere.
The roadbike trio had an early start as they had 50 miles or so to cover on the Saturday. Meanwhile the MTBers had a post-lunch start to allow for work commitments. So about 3pm, Mike, Josh, Anth, Pete and myself set off from Rhayader and made for the byway that heads north-west up and over Esgair Dderw. This is a steep and rocky track which quickly took us up out of the valley and onto open moorland. We passed a small group of 4x4s going back down - all carrying kids and wives out for the day (surely that defeats the object of having a hobby which ought to be a means to get away from kids and wifey?)
Once at the top, there was a mile or so of tarmac and a small grassy shortcut to the Trod. This didn't start too badly - it's a bit steep off the road but then gets gentler. It was soon after here that Anthony stopped with a bit of a mechanical. His freewheel was now freewheeling in both directions! No pedal power. We tried a few zip-ties between spokes and 1st gear, but that lasted about one turn, so Anth went off on foot. To be fair, we were all doing a great deal of pushing for the next few miles of endless bog. Having a rucksack full of camping gear didn't help. Mike had most of his gear in his new trailer which was ok until the last mile or so of bog, which was also covered in great tufts of grass, which made walking awkward, and the passage of trailers almost impossible.
All this pushing shoving and walking meant that we didn't arrive at the rendezvous at Llyn Egnant until gone 9pm. There was still enough daylight to make camp, cook, recount the day's adventures and snigger when Anth produced a hot water bottle from the bottom of his rucksack.
In the morning after breakfast, the various and assorted tools carried between us were examined, and the broken hub was soon disassembled to reveal......it really was well and truly broken......all the pawls within had broken up. A bodge was attempted.
By this time all except Anth had packed up and were ready to go. The group tried to assist by taking his tent down for him while he was still in it. Some of us could detect an imminent sense of humour failure but Matt continued to assist by poking him with a tent pole.
The bodge lasted only a couple of pedal turns, so a second zip-tie fix was tried, this time using many more ties. This worked quite well, and lasted all the way down past the Claerwen reservoir and most of the way down the byway to Rhiwnant. From there we were on the cycle route, on which Anth was pushed and pulled to the Elan valley visitor centre for an excellent cuppa. After that it was a relatively short push back to Rhayader and into the Eagles Inn, for lunch and a couple of beers, where we also met up again with the road crew. The trip may have worked out shorter than planned (originally we were to return via Strata Florida), but it still turned out to be a good enjoyable and entertaining couple of days.
Thanks to Matt for the planning, and also to Mike for the transport to Rhayader.