I’ve been trying to cram as much beautiful scenery into my weekends as possible lately. Most recently this meant a two-day bike trip around the Elan Valley with Sam and Ayoob, following an old Cyclist mag route. We’d considered a stay at Claerddu Bothy but decided against it for a few reasons. Firstly it’s very well-known, accessible, and often occupied. secondly, it was quite early in the day and we felt we could chip on and head to Rhayader to leave us with a shorter journey back to the car on Sunday, thirdly, staying in the bothy in November wouldn’t beat staying in a pub and having a Butty Bach or two before bed.

Friday night began with a total disaster of the worst possible kind. We arrived at our Airbnb to find that there we no tea bags. In my eyes, this is a fairly serious offence, how the fuck they expect somebody to have a pleasant stay without providing any teabags I don’t know, but we weren’t impressed. Either way, we made do, had a silver tea (cup of hot water, tragic eh) and got to bed ready for our 6:30am alarms. On rising early we got some snacks together, kitted up, and headed to Llandovery. I had planned bananas in wraps with peanut butter and jam for lunch. Sam described the banana as ‘nature’s sausage’; I am still gigging about this now.

We found a spot to park up at the route’s start point of Llandovery, it was mega foggy, cold, and frosty, resulting in the first hour of the ride being a challenge to try and get the hands warm. This wasn’t helped by Ayoob having to turn back to the car after three minutes because he’d routed his chain the wrong way through his rear mech. I feel a bit bad outing him for this in front of my six readers, but it was pretty funny. and anyway, it’s an easy mistake to make in a hurry, and we (or all the bike mechanic nerds I know) have all seen this offender all tarted up at bike shows.

Getting up out of the fog we reached Llyn Brianne and skirted around the edge. dipping in and out of the fog was very atmospheric, and the sun was peeping through letting us know we’d have one heck of a day to look forward to. From this point, we carried along past Tywi forest, and into Pontrhydfendigaid for a stop at a dreamy little village post office that did cups of tea and sold loads of exciting chocolate bars. We chose this point to consume our ‘nature’s sausage’ wraps and cracked on past Claerwen Reservoir, after which we stumbled upon a tiny little trail network just outside Elan Village with a sweet little flowing blue trail which was perfect for a bit of fun! The riding to this point had been very much all about the scenery rather than the riding, and it was great to razz around a few corners and get the wheels off the ground a bit. This was an ideal end to a great day and left us with just a couple of miles to tick off into Rhayader and to the pub where we were staying the night. They even had tea bags. Perfect.

Day two wasn’t such a dreamy experience, and was a bit of a lesson in pinching routes from gravel riders. It was almost entirely on road, with a large stretch on the A483, not really the sort of ‘out and away from it all’ we were searching for, but nessecary to complete the loop. I didn’t take any pictures because there wasn’t a whole lot worth taking pictures of, though it is worth mentioning that there are a ton of trails in Crychan forest which could be added on, but we were too wet and chilly to be up for it. If you’re considering this route and up for something more challenging/with more off road and more suited to a mountainbike I’d be tempted to try something along these lines. bear in mind i’ve just boshed that together using heat maps and not ridden it so it might well be savage or silly. Attempt at your peril. Food for thought though.

All in all, it was another top weekend out, and great to get into the Elan valley and have an excuse to eat loads of jelly snakes (‘What’s nature’s Jelly snake?’ I hear you ask… A regular snake.)