Training over the last couple of weeks has reinforced to me how great it can be to live in Wales, particularly if you get your arse out there to see it. The tides have been high in the mornings making the ride out onto the Gower particularly scenic and encouraging me to warm down after tempo runs on the beach. We’ve seen an uncharacteristic amount of sun and dry weather in the late winter and early spring this year.
If you’re keen you can head inland, up the valleys and into the hills where you can still find fresh snow. Those clouds in the photo above are very close. I don’t think it’s typical to find snow on the Black Mountain or the Rhigos in March so it made the rides up there particularly special. Hairpin descents on a black Tarmac strip snaking through white slopes.
Fitness has built well again this year making the hills easy and the distance comfortably accessible. The major limiter is time.
My iBike (that’s the computer on the stem in the photo above) crapped out crazy style descending the Rhigos down to Treorchy. It wasn’t a very fast descent, given that the first half was within cloud, snow and stinging hail and I was wearing a white jacket, but I guess water got into the wind port and made its way in deeper screwing up the various sensors in there. The data was unfixable. It didn’t spoil the climb up the Bwlch and the 20 minute + descent back towards Neath.
I got some good solo miles logged in the legs this week. Good mentally and good physically. The rain and snow makes the sun feels warmer when you find it.