Radnorshire - "Neither Wales nor England just Radnorsheer"

Early June and summer finally seemed to have arrived, but all was still not well with the coronavirus pandemic and rumours of a third wave driven by the Indian or Delta variant were threatening to derail the progress towards normality that the vaccine roll out had given us. Thus the planned trip to Bedfordshire and sampling of Bedfordshire clangers would have to wait until Bedford itself was no longer considered a hotspot for the new variant of this belligerent virus.

So a decision had to be made on where to trek for my next century, my good friend Rocky had put himself forward for providing some company on the trip to Bedfordshire, suitably inspired I think by the Komoot invite which always makes tours look appealing! Having Whatsapped him a list of possible options I was a little surprised to say the least when he replied with Radnorshire. As the hilliest county of the five I proposed I wasn’t expecting Rocky to pick Radnorshire, I’m sure he won’t mind me saying his build is perhaps more geared up for a day in the Fens than the Cambrian mountains.

So an early morning start it was, picking up Rocky at 6:20 am for an hour and a half’s drive down to Kington. Conversation on the way revealed the main reason behind his choice for Radnorshire was that he’d basically no idea where it was so it sounded interesting and after realising it was a lumpy part of Wales decided to go for it anyway to re-live happy memories of family picnics in the Elan valley.

My confirmation that these trips are very much geared to a “touring” pace with plenty of stops for photo’s and cakes and generally getting to know the county appeared to ease Rocky’s nerves about the climbing that awaited him.

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With electric blue skies overhead and the met office app giving a less than five percent chance of rain throughout the day short sleeve order was declared and despite being in Wales the packable rain jacket was ditched in favour of extra space for Rhubarb and custard gels.

Radnorshire which is now part of Powys is the least populated area in Wales and with no towns having a population greater than six thousand we were soon into quiet country lanes.

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Just ten miles in and I was regretting not changing my 53/39 chainset for something a little more compact! The slopes of Stonewall Hill are described by “Lizzie” on Komoot as “very very very steep”. She was not wrong but what she had forgotten to add was that the surface is in a terrible condition with potholes, ruts and a dressing of gravel and detritus just daring you to get out of the saddle at a time when your quads are screaming at you to do just that! To make matters worse as I rounded a 20% right hander I’m face to face with an enormous tractor bearing down the slope towards me. No choice but to pull in to a tiny little passing place and cross my fingers that I can generate enough watts to gain some momentum and relaunch myself up the hill.

Luckily being early in the ride the legs had plenty in them to kick off again and get over the steep section and push on to the top of the hill. Whilst at the top, two thoughts were at the forefront of my mind, I wondered if Rock was thinking Radnorshire was a bad choice already and how sketchy the descent will be if the road surface on the descent is as bad as the side we had just climbed. Thankfully the answer to both questions was positive. Other than deep discomfort from the effects of salty sweat in his eyes, Rocky was happy his legs would recover soon and the descent although needing concentration on gravel strewn turns was thankfully a lot less gnarly than the ascent.

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Presteigne and a rather underwhelming section of Offa’s Dyke were our next stop, the precise original purpose of the Dyke are a matter for debate but named after the Anglo-Saxon King Offa from AD 757 it roughly follows the border between England and Wales but if it was built to keep the Celts from attacking the Mercians it’s hard to believe this section could have been effective!

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Knucklas and its’ impressive viaduct earnt it’s place on the route as the birthplace of Malcolm Page. Malcolm was a Birmingham City and Welsh international footballer who gets my choice as the most famous person from this county because for many years he was my dad’s favourite player, not one to go for the “flash” players as he called them my dad loved tough tackling, hard working, intelligent team players and Malcolm fitted that description perfectly playing 391 times for the Blues in a career that lasted for 17 years and saw him captain club and country many times.

The Climbpro feature on my Garmin Edge 530 had, if I’m honest, not really impressed me on my previous rides but in the mountains here I began to see its’ worth. Despite the initial shock I got at the base of Stonewall Hill when it kindly informed me that I was about to commence the first of no less than 14 rated climbs, it would prove useful, at the base of each climb with the colour coded slope profile and data giving a good heads-up of the climb about to be faced it definitely provided assistance in pacing the days climbs.

I’m not convinced Rocky found my commentary before each climb telling him how far, how steep and how much of the slope was red, amber or green actually helped but it kept me entertained! With a number of seemingly arduous climbs not registering on the climbpro feature I made a mental note to find out what defined a climb in the Climbpro feature. So a bit of googling later I can confirm that the 14 rated climbs completed had a Climb Score > 3500 (Climb Score = length of the climb(meters) x grade(percent)), they were >500 metres in length and were >3% average gradient. For the record the other six counties completed so far have not registered 14 rated climbs between them!

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The Long distance Glyndwr way passes through the Cambrian mountains in this region celebrating this Welsh warriors’ struggles against his noisy neighbours!

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Unsurprisingly as the least populated county in Wales the roads were virtually traffic free unfortunately this is probably also the reason why they are hopelessly maintained. The constant road hum was not really an issue but the real disappointment was that the perilous state of the roads made every descent an exercise in concentration, vigilance and a fair amount of nervousness about what might be round the corner, this is not the land of free-flowing descents to reward your climbing toils! It is however mightily peaceful and stunningly beautiful by way of compensation.

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The Old Swan Tea Rooms provided the first coffee hit of the day and despite the sun having taken a backseat to the slightly worrying cloud cover rolling in from the West it was still warm enough for a seat outside to watch the world go by in Rhayader. Excellent sausage rolls and Welsh Barabrith provided the calorie intake for the next round of hills to be tackled and we forgave the waitress for forgetting our coffees on the grounds it increased our time to recharge the batteries.

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As the source of Birminghams’ domestic water supply the Elan valley is well known to most Brummies, we’ve even got a model of it in Cannon Hill Park! Despite my many Welsh holidays as a boy and cycling and walking trips since, I had never been to the area before so the next leg of this tour was the part I was most looking forward to but first the “Iconic” climb of the day had to be crested. As ever the point of reference for the climb was Simon Warren and his 100 climbs book/app. Penrhiw-Wen scores a 6/10 and is described as fantastically empty, lonely and exposed but don’t let this put you off this is a fabulous climb on decent road surfaces with a great mix of vast views, white water stream, a small wooded section and boulder strewn hillsides, never too steep and with numerous ramps on which to recover slightly this is a climb you can enjoy.

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The descent down to the reservoirs was a major improvement on the previous bone shakers with a relatively smooth surface and only a couple of hairpin switchbacks to test the nerves.

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Built in the late 19th century by the Birmingham water corporation the five man made lakes created by damming the Elan and Claerwen rivers hold 99,499,000 m³ of water which is gravity fed to the Frankley reservoir located on the southwest fringes of the city. Typically the water flows at just 2mph taking one and a half to two days to make the journey from mid-Wales to England’s second city which lets just confirm at this point is NOT Manchester!!

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Marvelling at the Victorian engineering and the beauty of the area we hardly noticed the rain drifting in but looking back it does serve as a warning to me that trusting the met office app when choosing clothing and gear for the more remote counties on this challenge may be just a tad foolhardy. The rain did of course also help embellish the stereotype of a typical day out in Wales!

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The fact the reservoirs are a popular draw for tourists in this area and that the area is sparsely populated seemed to be borne out by the fact that at each of our stops around the lakes we were bumping into the same people we had sat outside the cafe in Rhayader with! Notably this included a silver haired couple on an impressive white Harley-Davidson who did have me commenting to Rock that although I would never contemplate giving up my self-propelled version of two-wheeled travel for the option of 66kW of Harley-Davidson power, the couple did look far cooler than us rocking up to the cafe on a classic touring motorcycle and full leathers in comparison to our MAMIL look and sweat dripping out of our helmets as we propped our carbon-fibre steeds up against the cafe table!

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A fleet of Porsche cars from the decades past and present passed us going in the other direction as we neared our final stop in the Elan valley. The visitor centre close to Rhayader provided a perfect spot for a coffee, a slice of passion fruit cake and a bit more information about the history of the reservoirs. It was here we once again bumped into another of the previous cafe’s customers another biker amusingly sporting a “sons of arthritis” hells angels style T-shirt, but this along with the walking stick should perhaps have been a warning sign to me not to ask him how he was! A good thirty minutes later and Rock and I had received the lowdown on his three years of ill-health and ongoing legal battle with an “infamous” NHS consultant who in his words had mistakenly punctured his bowel and stitched him back up without knowing during a routine operation leading to severe complications.

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Leaving the Elan Valley we were a little over halfway, the next fifty kilometres were however the easiest of the route continuing our journey through remote landscapes with Newbridge-on-Wye the only real centre of habitation before the finish in Kington. The final eight rated climbs still awaited us in the last thirty kilometres.

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The penultimate rated climb of the tour, coming with 150km in the legs was a tough 750m struggle on broken tarmac with a short but savage 25% section, it was at this point Rocky’s legs decided regardless of the copious amounts of jelly babies offered they just hadn’t got “red” gradients left in them and a short cleated hobble was required to crown this summit. Chapeau to him, this had been his longest ride for a few years and his hilliest century ride to date. The only grumble he’d uttered all day, repeatedly mind 😜, was about the pain from the sweat in his eyes, thankfully my recent purchase of a DHB summer bandana had spared me this challenge.

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With the Radnorshire century box ticked we decided not to tackle another climb up to Old Radnor and bundled the bikes into the back of the van and freshened up before driving the short distance up the hill to The Harp at Old Radnor.

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A pint of Hobsons and a delicious burger with whipped goats cheese and chutney was ample reward for the days efforts and the excited chattering about tractors from the locals was a fitting end to a fabulous day in this remote and beautiful area.

The ride in numbers

163.5km

3045m Elevation gain

8hrs 38 min moving time (18.9 km/h)

4 Torq Rhubarb and Custard gels

1 Barabrith Slice

1 Sausage Roll

1 Passion cake

2 coffee stops

4 bottles of water

1 beer

0 punctures

14 climbs

11 cattle grids

20 Porsches

Finally if you got a spare quid in your pocket my justgiving page to raise vital funds for the Midlands Air Ambulance is now live Keith Jones is fundraising for Midlands Air Ambulance Charity (justgiving.com)