Wales

18 May 2011

The Lonely Motorcyclist

On the 18th of May I set out for a 2 day trip up to Wales, partly to give myself something to do, partly to test out the new bike luggage, and partly to test out the new bike, but mostly to see if all these moving parts would come together and facilitate this idea of mine.

The route was straight forward: Woking to Cardiff, to Dinas Dinlle, then the next day Dinas Dinlle through the Peak District, then back to Woking.

As my A5 had shat itself literally hours after I landed, I had no GPS, so I simply wrote myself some 'pace notes' and followed them. I decided to write down only the names of the roads I would be riding on, and the first turning I needed to take, and in which direction I should take it. I'll scrap this system for the mainland, and will instead write only the names of the towns I need to pass through on my route, as this approach will allow me to aim more accurately at where I need to go. Ideally, I won't be referring to the GPS at all, I'll simply navigate by memorising town and road names, and sticking to the general direction that I need to take.

Getting the panniers onto the R6 proved to be quite a task in itself. I'd been warned about how difficult this task could be on a supersports due to the shape of their tails, however I'd purchased Oxford X50 panniers, marketed as the panniers for sports bikes, so I was confident. Nevertheless, with the panniers fitted, various parts of the bike's tail were mashed and mostly obscured, including the brake light, which isn't a good idea at all. Once they were on however, I didn't notice them at all, they didn't unsettle the bike, the didn't move, they didn't impede performance, in fact, I'd go so far as to say that anyone who thinks you need a bike bigger than the 600 class to tour on has their hand on it, as it certainly can be done.

The first day's riding was uneventful. I rode through a small amount of rain on the way to Cardiff, not that it really could be called rain (it was more like a 'bracing dampness in the air') but it was enough to get everything dirty.

The route became more interesting on the other side of Cardiff, as I rode up the A470 through the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park on my way to Dinas Dinlle. For me, this is what touring is all about, great roads, great people, great food, great scenery, and at this point in the day, great weather. I stopped on the other side of the park for a traditional Welsh lunch of chicken and leek pie in Erwood at the Wheelright Arms where much merriment was to be had at my request for the 'dunny'.

Some hours later I arrived in Dinas Dinlle, and set up camp at the Dinas Dinlle Caravan Park. I had another traditional Welsh meal at Bwyty Lleu of tandoori chicken curry, after which I retired to the bar in the caravan park to muse over the day and think about just what it is I'd gotten myself into.

Today's riding was great, but pitching camp each night, and the resultant packing in the morning is going to be a fucking hard task to complete for over 60 consecutive days. I found setting the tent up to be a tedious task, as was all the other unpacking, unrolling, inflating, staking, locking and the like. Sleeping on my camping mattress was also not the best as I had no pillow, however this was somewhat solved by using my boots to transform the end of the mattress into makeshift pillow. It was quite windy that night, and I couldn't help but think that perhaps I should have parked the bike further away from the tent, as if it had blown over, it would have landed right on my head.

The next morning after packing all the camping gear in the world away (or so it seemed), I headed for the mountains, specifically for Betws-y-Coed. The countryside is simply stunning up there, great riding roads once you clear the grey brigade and the caravanning set.

 

 

 

From Betws-y-Coed I headed east aiming for the Peak District, then turned south and raced back to Woking via the M1.

I pride myself on my fitness and body fat percentage, especially when compared with others my age from my social circle, I'm pretty sure most would agree that I'm in decent shape, however stopping to refuel the bike and for a snack illustrated to me just how hard it may end up being to eat healthily on the road: the petrol stations simply don't allow for it. My diet is low fat, high calcium and protein, with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, finding this on the road will be tricky, and from what I've seen so far, near impossible.