Mille Cymru (Ride Report)

Fair warning - this is nearly 5000 words long, and you may find it extremely boring, but hey, it was a very long ride, I wanted to get it all down, and you don't have to read it. The forum usernames you don't recognize are all YACF people.

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I think it must have been as long ago as May 2009 that U.N. Dulates (aka organiser John Hamilton) started making noises about having something a bit special up his sleeve for 2010. As the summer went on and he revealed more details of the 1000km (and very hilly) route a buzz built up on the UK audax forum, YACF, with plenty of descriptions like "ride of the year" being bandied about. Feeling ambitious and hungry for action after doing my first 400 in June, I decided this would be my main goal for 2010, and emty quickly followed suit. When the website went live in November with online sign-up, the full complement of sixty entrants was booked out within a couple of weeks, with several more people on the waiting list (a change in the location of the sleep stop allowed John to squeeze a few more riders in later.)

After planking down the £60 to enter, the next step was to pull out Simon Doughty's book and figure out a training plan. The plans in the book only went up to 600 but I reckoned I could aim to peak for the Three Passes 600 and then taper in the remaining weeks to the Mille. Drawing up a spreadsheet and couting back the weeks, I discovered that I should have started training in October...fortunately the early stages of training involved distances shorter than the Sunday morning club spin so that was well covered. It was a long, hard winter and the lingering snow and ice in the Wicklow mountains meant that even when I could get out, I wasn't getting the mountain miles in that were going to be necessary for a 1000k of Welsh hills. Looking back at my log, there were three weeks in January where I did not get out at all, followed by a big jump in February to three consecutive weeks of 200s (man, I remember being really tired on the last of those).

By April the Irish audax season was in full swing with events every weekend, including a 430km fleche through a bitterly cold April night, and on the May bank holiday weekend emty and I headed over to Wales on a scouting mission to do the Brevet Cymru 400. Although it ended with several tough hours of heavy rain and I was bordering on hypothermia by the end of it, I found the Brevet Cymru inspirational - I was riding strongly and the Welsh countryside was stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately, while I was riding myself into the best form I've ever had, emty was suffering from a punishing schedule at work while trying to pack hundreds of kilometers in at the weekends and a couple of weeks later he sent me a text to let me know that he was dropping out.

I didn't want to admit it to myself, but I was also feeling the strain and it was taking increasing amounts of bloody-mindedness to get through audaxes. Knee trouble flared up on the New Ross 400, and again on the Three Passes 600. The Mick Byrne 200 felt so hard that I started to doubt if I would even make it through the first day of the Mille, but after the 600 my motivation was completely shot, and the few short rides I did in July were arduous, joyless, time-serving affairs. When the GPS files of the route arrived, they at least suggested that no individual day would be any harder than the REK 400. On the other hand, when I got up the morning after the REK, doing another hilly 300 was the last thing on my mind.

At the end of the Mick Byrne, we had received a voucher for a half an hour of sports massage so I cashed that at the end of June. I was mainly concerned about the ache in my neck and shoulders that was lingering for weeks after long rides but when I mentioned the knee trouble, the therapist suggested that the ridiculous tightness of my hamstrings was probably aggravating it and that regular stretching might help. I stopped drinking tea and coffee for the four weeks beforehand to maximise the benefits of caffeine during the ride. I did a few grudging stretches every day and checked the weather forecast and the thread on YACF incessantly for updates.

Come the day, I packed my drop bag and rode down to the ferry port and a little excitement started creeping back in. I chatted with a guy who was returning from an eight-day tour around Galway as we waited to unload from the ferry and he guided me to the train station (not much of a job as it turned out - it's right next to the ferry terminal). Too keyed up to read, I spent the train journey to Wellington gazing out the window at the countryside I was about to spend three days riding through. I checked in at the Travelodge and then rode over to the village hall at Upton Magna where the ride would be starting the following morning to sign on. Dinner was laid on and knots of UK audaxers were having the usual one-upping conversations about the most agonizing rides they'd done in the past. Kevin O'Sullivan had already been and gone so, not knowing anyone, I didn't hang around after dinner and went back to the hotel to watch bad television.

Out of bed at 4:15 on Friday for the ride back to Upton Magna and breakfast at the hall before the depart. I was anxious to be in the first group in order to leave to maximize daylight (riders set off in 3 groups of 25ish at fifteen minute intervals with the later groups allowed a later finish to compensate) and evidently Kevin was too since he was already waiting at the start line when I wheeled my bike up. After a few minutes of nervous waiting around, John sent us off and we were finally underway.

The opening section from Shrewsbury to Lake Vrynwy was pretty flat and as usual people were working off their accumulated tension by charging out of the traps. I knew I'd pay for it later if I tried to stay with the lead group so after half an hour I dropped off the back and that was the last I saw of Kevin for the rest of the weekend. The cafe at the lake had opened early to feed us at the control so I ate a couple of toasted tea cakes even though I wasn't feeling hungry - it was going to be a long way to the next control at Llanberis in any case. After a pleasant ride around the reservoir, it was time to face the dragons in the form of Bwlch y Groes. I'd been planning to take it very easy on the climbs, both to husband my energy and to avoid exploding my knees too early, but that wasn't really an option on Bwlch - after a few kilometers of sharp steps upward along a road too narrow for a car to pass a bike, you turn right onto the road over the summit and I was immediately into my granny gear and out of the saddle. Before the Mille I could have counted the number of times I had used that gear (28 x 26) on the fingers of one hand but I was very familiar with it by Monday morning. On the other hand, if some light-fingered individual had made off with my big chainring, I wouldn't have noticed its absence even for a second.

A fairly sizeable group formed for the descent to Bala, the emerging sun reflected in a lake so still it might have been polished glass but it thinned down pretty quickly as we started climbing again. I spent a few minutes riding a deux with Panoramix, a youngish Breton lad now living in Bristol, before we were overhauled by MattH and Postie (who had ridden four hundred miles up from Portsmouth over the previous four days to get to Upton Magna). We stuck together over Migneint and on towards Llanberis where we were joined by the notorious Hummers who proved to be rather more urbane company than his frequently scatological (not to say downright perverse) forum posts would suggest. Just after Betws Y Coed some yobbo leant out of a passing car window to shout at me - fortunately I resisted the temptation to give him the finger as it proved to be Paul O'Donoghue with John O'Sullivan behind the wheel en route to the Mersey 24 hour TT. Suitably cheered on, we pushed over Pen y Pass with incredible views of Snowdon in the sunshine to the control at Llanberis. I wasn't feeling great at this point, probably from incipient dehydration, lack of food and unconsciously pushing a bit harder than I should have with the group.

More climbing up a grass-down-the-middle lane ensued and I soon dropped behind MattH and Postie and settled into a plod along the coast road through Beddgelert to Harlech and Barmouth. As I was descending into Beddgelert, Mel Kirkland flew past my shoulder. Unfortunately just around the corner some clown in a station wagon was making a very slow three point turn and Mel wasn't able to brake in time and ploughed into the side of the car. I stopped to see if he was okay but he quickly gathered a group of sympathetic bystanders and he was lucid enough to make a few wry jokes about it so I reckoned it was okay to push on. Bruised and with some damage to his bike, he still managed to mmake the next control before I left and he had the unmitigated nerve to catch me about twenty kilometers out on Monday morning and beat me to finish line by about quarter of an hour. After Barmouth there was option to take the road or ride the flatter, shorter, more scenic gravel path around the Mawddach estuary. I didn't have to be asked twice, I can assure you. It was bit crowded with dogwalkers and people on hybrids but the views were great and if anything I was going faster on the hardpack dirt than I had been on the road. I got to the control at Dolgellau (240km) a bit before six.

In keeping with the iron law of UK audax that every control shall be followed a savage climb that will reacquaint you with the meal you've just eaten, there was a bugger of a climb out of Dolgellau. I was feeling worse and worse, crawling up in the granny, and the only consolation available at the top was the the thought that coming up the other side would have been even worse, the descent was littered with 14% gradient warning signs. I more or less pulled it together for the drag up to Staylittle but the series of 12% rollers after that destroyed my will to live. Night fell with about 40k to go, the clear night and full moon making lights unnecessary until after 10pm. The final run in from Newbridge through Beulah to Llanwyrtd Wells was interminable, with yet more steep rollers up to 15% in grade. I was too tired to keep any momentum from the donwhills, too weak to twiddle up in the granny, and when I got out of the saddle it felt like I was actually going backwards. This was definitely my lowest point on the weekend, trudging along in the dark, depairing at the thought of two more days of this. I made it in a little after midnight, had a shower in diminishing hot water (somehow the boiler had switched back onto a timer), ate as much as I thought my stomach would take and generally sat around staring into space until I finally got it together to go over to the other hall and get some sleep. One rider walked in not long after me and announced he was packing - he proved not to be the only one that night.

Between my own exhaustion, constant disturbance from people threading into the hall, and the unbelievable racket generated in an echoing hall full of snoring randonneurs, I never really got to sleep. I threw the towel in and got up a little before six. The cup of tea I'd been waiting four weeks to have didn't seem to do much good and I was still feeling shattered when I headed out after seven. The road out was one of those gentle upward drags that looks pan flat and again I seemed to be going unbelievably slowly - even when the road started going downhill towards Llandovery I was having to pedal to go over 20km/h. It was a grey, drizzly morning and although the first leg that day was very easy, my spirits were still low. I trickled through Carmarthen (which, in my candid opinion, looked like a ****hole) to the control at Pendine on the coast for more tea and a bacon sandwich. All the intelligence suggested that the next section to St. David's was going to be the hardest part of the weekend, a trawl along the coastline with all the short, vicious, leg-sapping climbs that implied, and I really wasn't looking forward to it.

The intelligence was not wrong, with several of the climbs hitting 16%, every one of them followed by an equally steep descent with a village full of tourists at the bottom as though expressly designed to kill every bit of your momentum. But there were sections along unpaved bike routes, and through tunnels, and views of the sea across windswept beaches and somehow I found my form returning. I was spinning up all but the steepest climbs, powering over the gentler drags. By Broadhaven I was starting to overtake other riders and I was in my element. There is nothing that appeals to the more competitive (and, lets be honest, obnoxious) side of my character than catching sight of another cyclist up the hill in front of me and steadily reeling them in. I won't deny that the pleasure is doubled if they're on some stupidly light carbon machine and they're visibly distressed about being passed by some fred on a bike that weighs (as Niceonetom put it) about as much a fridge freezer. I didn't get the bonus points too often on the Mille since everyone else was also hauling around a saddlebag weighing as much a freshly slaughtered Shropshire pig but on the upside, it did make them easier to catch.

Controlling at St David's was messy - I got stuck in a sandwich shop behind some idiot woman who was ordering a minuscule quantity of every single item at the deli counter, one thing at a time. Then there was no location printed on the receipt so I hit an ATM and was so over-excited by the sight of cold, hard cash that I walked away without the receipt (luckily the next person in the line asked me if I had wanted it before I got too far away). There was a good tailwind from St. Davids to Fishguard and I managed to make up some of the time I had lost on the slow section from Pendine, overtaking Mal Volio on the way. Overtaking Mal Volio was one of the themes of the weekend for me - he stormed off at the start in the lead group and was out of the sleep stop before I was even out of bed on Saturday and Sunday but sooner or later the confusion induced by riding a bike with gears and his penchant for al fresco sleeping would delay him long enough that sooner or later I'd catch up with him. He stopped for a quick faff and I pressed on, passing the Things who appeared to be having a romantic walk in the long grass alongside the road but I suspect that Thing2 was just holding the tandem while Thing1 attempted to staunch the nosebleed that eventually resulted in them packing. I was high enough to thoroughly enjoy yet another 10km climb around Nevern before making the control in the Mason's Arms at Cilgerran for rice pudding and tinned peaches, sausage rolls, pies, sandwiches, bananas and anything else that was within arm's reach.

Stuffed to the gills, I rolled out with Plodder (on his first audax over 400k) and Mal Volio though we didn't manage to stay together for too long. I knew there was one more big climb to come before the end of the stage and with the perennial optimism of the self-deluding I kept saying "this must be it" each time the road started going upwards. Suffice to say, when it actually was it, there wasn't much room for doubt - it wasn't all that steep but after cranking it along the coast road there weren't too many matches left in the box, it was raining softly but persistently, and the gloom was gathering rapidly. Plodder and I ambled over the top but I lost him immediately on the descent - I could barely see through the dense cloud, water coating my glasses and my lights barely cutting into the murk. Putting the lights on high beam made things even worse, a virtual white-out in the reflected light, and I had to descend at a crawl, braking as hard as I could on the slick surface, and straining to make out where the unmarked road was. It was one of the most nervewarcking experiences of my life.

I took the remaining fifty kilometers very slowly, stopping at every turn to triple-check the routesheet (very hard to read with the torchlight bouncing off the water on the plastic bag) for fear of adding a few bonus miles but I was pleasantly surprised to recognise some of the roads from the Brevet Cymru, especially since I knew they meant a long, gradual descent. The final drag up to the sleep stop went on for ever, again visibility so poor that it felt like I was travelling along this endless narrow tunnel and the usual nagging doubts about whether I could possibly have gone off route and be riding 18k in the wrong direction. I got in just after midnight and again took far too long messing around before going to sleep.

In the sole and very minor failing on the part of the support staff for the entire weekend, my wake-up call came 45 minutes late but since I had actually been sound asleep I was almost grateful, and after another leisurely breakfast and an extensive faff, I didn't get on the road until well after eight. I wasn't concerned - after the good day on Saturday I knew I wasn't going to have any problems finishing the 230km third section before dark. I passed a visibly shattered Akin just before the long climb up to Mynydd Eppynt, which opened with a couple of kilometers straight up the side of a glacial valley before coming around to go over the firing range. I could see a couple of dots already at the turn and settled into grimpeur mode. It proved to be Panoramix with MattC (who I'd had extremely tentative arrangements to meet at the Travelodge on Thursday evening that inevitably came to nothing). Eventual winner in the Lanterne Rouge stakes, MattC was labouring under minimal sleep and I think he assumed that my late departure on Sunday meant I was too because a look of visible disgust passed over his face when I admitted I'd gotten in around midnight the previous night. He genially suggested that if I was one of those people perhaps I'd like to piss off which I duly promised to do as soon as the road started going upwards again.

We scooped up several others at the info control at Aberscir but once the laneways started bumping upwards I ended up off the front with Chris Wilby who had wrecked his derailleur on the first day, rerouted his chain to finish the day on a single cog, and then borrowed Pete Turnbull's spare bike for the rest of the ride. A full English in Llandovery set me up for the unquestionable highlight of the ride, the long climb up to Llyn Brianne reservoir and the breathtaking ride along the ridge above it. I did suspect Mr Dulates was taking the piss a little with the info control (the distance to Llanwyrtd Wells on a signpost, revealing that although we'd done nearly 100k at that point, we were only 18 miles from where we started). The road from there to Tregaron was as bleak and rough as the worst of rural Wicklow and my backside was beginning to give me some grief but the "relatively benign" run along the A485 to Aberystwyth had nothing to startle the horses. I arrived at the control in time to watch the final minutes of the Tour de France before pushing on.

There was more long, steady climbing along a ridge away from the coast, with postcard views across the valley to left before the drop to Devil's Bridge, and another climb back up to Cymystwyth. Passing a red kite feeding on the carcass of a dead fox, I saw another rider far up the road. Inevitably it turned out ot be Mal Volio yet again and he gave me a quick primer on the etymology of Welsh placenames before drifting backwards a little as we proceeded along the valley and into the Elan valley. The reservoir was almost completely drained but very picturesque nonetheless. I kept rolling steadily along the narrow lanes afterwards before they spat me out onto the road just before Newbridge in time for the second go over the roller to Beulah that had destroyed me on Friday night. In daylight and with 130km less in my legs they had a bit less fight in them but I was still counting the distance down by the half-kilometer until Llanwyrtd Wells. Postie and Hummers passed me in the opposite direction, already into their final stage.

I took my time at Llanwytrd, not relishing the prospect of doing the Beulah rollers for the third time and well aware that I had plenty of time in hand, but pushed on a bit before 11. There was a steady stream of headlights coming towards me as I rode into the darkness. I managed my only deviation of the weekend on the one road you would have thought was etched into my memory at this point, taking a somewhat smaller and considerably more pleasant road for a couple of kilometers before realizing my error and retracing to get back onto the right road. Which proved to be a bit of a pussycat going in that direction and really nothing to worry about. It was a warm night and I found myself enjoying night riding for the first time in quite a while, rolling along some gentle drags easily enough, listening to the quiet of the countryside at night. I started to fade a little towards the end of the section, and was passed by a couple of riders (one of who was on his very first audax) but got to the control at 1:30. I had more rice pudding and tinned peaches and decided to try and get some sleep since the control wasn't exactly thrumming with social activity.

The sleep thing didn't really come together, what with the snoring and things swimming in front of my closed eyelids in a manner which I had last experienced in the days when I was young enough for recreational drug use, but I figured any rest was better than nothing so I lay there for a while before getting up for yet more rice pudding and tinned peaches and several cups of tea. I got back on the road around 3, almost immediately stopped again because I was wildly overdressed, and then settled into what must have been close to twenty kilometers of descent to Newtown. After that it was mainly lanes with a marginal downward trend, and the sun slowly rising behind a thickening cover of cloud and the return of the drizzle. I sagged a bit again when the rain started but kicked myself out of it when Mel Kirkland passed me and I did my best to hammer the rest of it. Obviously, with over a thousand kilometers in my legs at that point, it was more of a gentle tapping than anything remotely resembling hammering, but it was all I had at that stage.

I got back to Upton Magna a little after 7 and sat there dripping for a while as I tried to absorb the shock and relief of it all being over. Over the course of the next couple of hours the remaining riders arrived in a steady stream as I sat listening to the banter between Hummers, Postie, Toby and PaulD. MattC made it in a bare minute before the 9am cut-off (although as one of 6:30 group on Friday he actually had half an hour in hand) and with that it was all over. 73 started, 53 finished. One superman was finished before 2pm on Sunday. On a fixed gear (he wasn't alone in that either - there were two others, and I think they both finished).

Of course rides always look rosier in retrospect, especially when you feel like you've outdone yourself, but even allowing for that, this felt like a truly exceptional event and judging from the thread on YACF everone involved, riders, organiser and volunteers alike, feels the same way. Wales is unbeatable cycling territory, with magnificent scenery, from the cragged mountains of Snowdonia to the greenest of valleys and the enormous lakes and reservoirs. The roads are mostly quiet and (to someone used to Ireland) the paving is mostly of very high standard and the people are friendly. The support crew, most of whom were giving up their entire weekend so other people could have a good time riding their bikes, were sympathetic and helpful beyond anything you could imagine. No sooner would you stagger off your bike into the hall at Llanwrtyd Wells than someone would be asking you what you wanted to eat, gently reminding you to get your card stamped, checking if your bike needed any work. The routesheet was near faultless and the route itself was a masterpiece - indeed I'd recommend that anyone download the routesheets from the website before it's put into mothballs as it would give you an excellent basis for touring in Wales.

For myself, I'm very, very pleased to have done it - it absolutely justified and merited the eight months of training and the countless hours I spent in preparation and daydreaming about it. It seemed like the majority of the entrants at some point sported a jersey from one or other of the grand tour brevets, be it Paris-Brest, London-Edinburgh, Madrid-Gijon, Mille Miglia Italia, Boston-Montreal. I am both proud and honoured that I managed to earn my own jersey in that pantheon, especially since it sounds like it will be several years, if ever, before John runs the Mille Cymru again. I met a lot of people whom I very much hope to see again - even if the likes of MattH and Hummers were making it look far too easy, relaxed, unfazed, cheerful and inexplicably well-groomed whenever I ran into them, they were unfailingly good company. A multi-day brevet is a serious undertaking, but it proved to be easier in many ways than I thought it was going to be, and even if you think you'd never manage it, you should have a go - you may well surprise yourself. For my part I felt that I was getting stronger as the weekend went on, although the statistics would tell a different story. I was expecting that when I finished I wouldn't want to look at a bike again for a few months, but actually I'm already looking forward to the Surf & Turf 300 in a few weeks time (I must retension my saddle though - there's a big welt across my right buttock in the shape of the frame of of Brooks B17). After all, I have this jersey I need to show off.