Ffordd Pen Llech is the nearest you’ll get on a British road to downhill skiing on a bike. The narrow strip of tarmac careers down a hill at the side of Harlech Castle in north-west Wales, blundering in between picturesque stone cottages as if in a panic to get to the bottom. According to the…
Author: Rob Ainsley
Caen Hill: The ski-slope canal towpath
Canal towpaths are often great for cycling, for four important reasons. They are flat; car-free; scenic; and they are generously punctuated with pubs. When the countryside gets less flat, though, they’re sometimes less great for the narrowboats using them. The Kennet & Avon Canal – built in 1797–1810 as part of the vital waterways link…
Bosham Harbour: Time and tide
So long as you don’t get too ambitious and attempt to head out into the harbour, here’s a place where you can comfortably cycle along the surface of the sea. And get some unique entertainment too. The trim harbourside village of Bosham, near Chichester on the south coast, lets you do that most days. It’s…
Cam High Road: Roman Road, straight up
Here’s a Roman Road with the kind of beeline straightness you associate with those ironing-board landscapes south of the Severn-Trent line – but with the rugged verticality of the North. A Roman Road fit for a Yorkshireman. Via Virilis. You can just imagine Fred Trueman’s eighty-greats-grandfather holding forth over an amphora of Ovis Niger ale:…
Debenham: The 1km-long ford
Britain abounds in a peculiar type of shallow ‘ford’ that stretches the definition to great lengths – lengths such as 100m or more. Unlike a conventional ford, in this sort you go along, not across, the watercourse. It’s an uneasy jobshare between road and stream, with small fish temporarily accompanying you on your journey. Thanks to…
Wales 5: Caernarfon to Holyhead
I was out, with a quick farewell circuit of the castle, by 8ish. Today was sun sun sun at last, and Anglesey looked serene and bright over the saturated blue of the strait. I was soon across the Menai old suspension bridge, a compactly impressive thing in fat bricks. I cycled across followed byimpatient overtakers….
Wales 4: Corris to Caernarfon
A better day all round, except for the discovery that my glasses had disappeared. (Left in Corris YH? Bizarre. Another victim of beer amnesia?) The morning ride, out into the misty hills. Green steep sides, sheep, square and stern slate houses. A long climb up a stony path, frankly unsuitable for touring bikes as well…
Wales 3: Rhayader to Corris
A bad, testing, but ultimately not unrewarding, day. I had my brake blocks replaced at Rhayader’s local bike shop and, to the ripping-off sound of velcro the size of a tablecloth, was rushed £22. I set off back into the rain……and it rained and rained and rained all day, non stop, a wall of water,…
Wales 2: Merthyr Tydfil to Rhayader
I was off by 7.45am into a miserable, nagging, repetitive drizzle. It was like a failing marriage. A convoluted series of paths, roads; a few good runs on cinder railtrails; grimy backdrops of misted hills; more drab housing… a world of grey and drained green. Eventually I came out at Ponsticill, the reservoir, ringed by…
Wales 1: Cardiff to Merthyr Tydfil
Not great weather. The air was softly textured with drizzle, so fine it enveloped me like a hangover. Though I also had a hangover, the product of a convivial stay in Bath last night, which enveloped me like drizzle. It wasn’t cold, or warm, or dry, or humid. But it was grey. Cardiff looked grim;…