Words By Drew Moore, Photos by Vess and Drew - Back to main Digression
Saturday 14th October saw six hardy members of the LaDs (Lightweights and Digressers) splinter group of the West Glos embark on an ill-advised 24 mile mountain bike 'raid' to the far flung north Wales area, around the charming town of Machynlleth.
Julian, Rod, Vessey, Matt, associate member Murdock and your humble scribe somehow managed to cram ourselves, half a dozen bikes and enough sarnies to stage a small garden party into a car and a Tranny.
The reward for the shockingly early departure was a brekkey stop in Llanidloes, where we patronised a very salubrious establishment. An hour of so later its smallest room boasted a somewhat slimmer roll of Andrex, as the more apprehensive and weight conscious athletes among the group sought to partially offset the material gains from a large farmhouse special and two rounds of toast.
Half an hour later saw us at the car park starting point in downtown Mach, where precious riding minutes were squandered as Matthew tried in vain to master the art of buying a parking ticket from the machine. Having deposited enough £1 coins to cover the parking needs of a small haulage fleet for a week, the member charged with educating children like yours still failed to persuade it to part with the necessary paper slip. Having switched to something more within his intellectual scope, a fellow rider showed the machine who was boss as Matt finished tying his laces.
Off we went into a misty and chilly morning, with the promise of sunshine winning the day helping to keep our minds off the minor niggle of a claimed 500m high point along this 'Big Mach' route.
All too soon the niggle became reality; 'How pleasant' we thought as we followed a lane alongside a gently babbling brook, only for the road to reach suddenly skywards and launch our unprepared legs out of the valley towards the clouds. As if rehearsed, the artful ones among the group (that narrows it down a lot) staged a series of 'random' stops to pee / take off jacket / check bike for non-existent problems etc at carefully spaced intervals, thus ensuring that sustained exertion was kept to a bare minimum.
'I haven't had this much fun pushing a bike up a hill in years' Julian quipped, without a hint of sarcasm.
Only a few miles out from Mach nevertheless found us in an area of upland hills and forest that felt like we were like the middle of nowhere.
Which, given that this was the first time I'd led a route using a GPS rather than a map, was probably exactly where we'd end up.
Glimpses of superb views to the east through rapidly thinning clouds spurred us on to the crux of the day's exertions - a twenty minute push up a viciously steep shale-strewn gully. Murdoch demonstrated why we won the Falklands War by promptly hitching the Epic onto his shoulder and yumping up at a speed faster than most of us could have ridden down. The lack of sweating, red face or heavy breathing as we met at the top served only to rub more salt into our collective wounded pride.
As the last of us crested the top to much sighs of relief, blowing out of cheeks and the odd celebratory muesli bar, any thoughts of lingering longer were soon banished as the stiff wind chill bit into gently glowing bodies. An all too short descent lead to further fire road climbing, bringing us eventually to the threatened 500m contour at Foel Cerrigbrithion.
I spotted a wrong turn at this moorland section, but sadly not before Jules, Rod, Vess and Murdoch had seized the opportunity of finally getting some gravity-assisted action. Much cussing and swearing ensued as an enforced retreat up the hill was imposed.
Ten miles into the ride and we spotted the first signs of civilisation in the form of a rusty barn which marked the turning west to complete the bottom leg of our loop.
By this time the generous baked bean portion featured in the aforementioned farmhouse specials had started to kick in, with a veritable frog's chorus of gaseous emissions providing a soundtrack to our progress along a steepening valley towards the ford at Bryn Glas.
With Matt's prophet-of-doom ringing in our ears, recounting a tale of a close shave getting a 300lb CCM across this approaching raging torrent without it being washed away, what chance with a 30lb MTB?
Fortunately, Afon Lluestgota was on our side, showing plenty of evidence of the dry September last month. Apart from Murdoch, who gracefully fell off but made-it-look like-he-meant-to, the rest of the intrepid group were soon across with cleaner bikes and sodden feet.
A lunch beckoned and with the sun now shining down from a near cloudless sky we stopped at a ruined mine to scoff sandwiches miraculously morphed into the shape of camelback pockets. Parked on a rock, my backside was decidedly more comfortable than it had been on the Giant's saddle, its home for the last 3 hours. Lightweight.
Swinging north for the homeward leg soon served up some cracking downhill going through a mixture of winding firebreaks, single-track and forestry, finally leading to the view of the day over a calm and shimmering Lyn Conach.
Continuing downward, Murdoch demonstrated the art of descending winding, rough, narrow and loose going at twice the speed of the rest of us. Pity his tubeless rear Michelin wasn't as enthusiastic about it as he was.
Puncture fixed, Rod then pioneered the route down some soft grassy woodland going recently used for an equine event. Presumably, perched on top of a horse these riders had a better view of the ground than our man, whose front wheel soon dropped and stopped in a ditch. Our two legged Welsh encyclopaedia then executed a graceful flying 'W' into the soft, wet and welcoming bank ahead. Needless to say the close knit team behind were quick to react, as three pairs of hands rushed to……..pick cameras out of pockets; the remainder either clapping/laughing/cheering.
Having dropped off the hills we were soon heading down past a farmhouse restoration and onto tarmac. A distinct lifting of the pace signified that Bish had caught a whiff of beer from the beckoning pubs of Mach.
But the fun was far from over; Rodders, clearly not satisfied with a single face plant, was in hot pursuit of a seemingly tireless Murdoch (what is he on?) when he dropped the front wheel into another ditch (you'll have to get a 29er to stop all this, mate). Man and machine parted company and went about their aerobatic separate ways. Murdoch, feeling the earth move, caught the final flourish, whilst the rest of us rounded the corner to witness Rod alternatively clutching his shoulder, then his knee, all the while doing a very passable impression of an elderly cat bringing up a fur ball, as he fought for the next breath of Dovey Valley air.
As if from nowhere, a stout, barrel-shaped 50-something Welsh woman appeared at his side, wearing a butcher's apron.
Like a scene from 'Misery' this Celtic answer to Cathy Bates eyed up our veteran fell runner and made her move with a swift 'You can come along inside with me - I'll make you a nice cup of sweet tea and dress that wound'.
There was no doubt that this was more of an instruction than an invitation.
Not normally one to pass up the opportunity of some impromptu social intercourse with the opposite sex, Rodders didn't need a second asking - winded, bleeding and sore he was pedalling away on the Univega faster than you could say Llanvihangel Crocorney.
Any one daft enough to want to investigate this route further can find it and loads of others at www.offroadadventures-online.com Meanwhile, I've been bitten by this wilderness ride bug and fancy another in the spring - let me know if you're interested and I'll keep you posted.
Drew