Kick Ass

Had an awesome weekend this week, Shelly and I have had a weekend away planned with friends for ages so come 8.30am Saturday morning off we set to Crickhowell in the Brecon Beacons (Wales if you don't know where they are) for a compelte decompress, no kids, no worries just do something enjoyable and have a great time.

Whilst Shelly and her mate went off and did their thing (It did end up involving some substantial spending on an original painting!) I got ready with my mate to crack the Crickhowell red route mountain bike route (22 miles). It didn't start off very auspiciously as we took the wrong turn straight away and so ended up going a mile down the road before we realised what had happend, so after 10 mins we were actually still no further down the route even though we had done 2 miles. As soon as we set off on the right route the first thing that hit us was a really steep climb out of Crickhowell and a mile later I had managed to keep going, a first for me on such a long steep climb!

We cracked on with the rest of the route and by the time we had climbed even higher we came across a new type of obstacle, SNOW! We had to fight through it and after a while we realised that we couldn't see the route, as we were contouring along a rifge we decided we should get down hit the road and rejoin the route slightly further on, the descent was pretty hairy as it was steep and we got up to a great speed, wind chill ended up freezing the tears that the wind was making stream from my eyes. After a coupel of miles on a long slow ascent on the tarmac we turned off the road and got back on the trails, however as we were quite high up the snow was everywhere and proved to be a really savage challenge as the snow, which was about 9-12 inches deep had ice below it so it was like cycling through very deep, soft sand, this was what was really sapping our strength as the routes are designed to provide tough sections but then easier to allow you to recoevr, the snow was meaning we had to tough it out with no real respite (the downed pine trees across the tracks didn't help)

Still a sense of humour reigned and some of the sights were spectacular, it wasn't until we had had to carry the bikes and fight our way across a mountain ridge for about 3 miles that I was starting to get hacked off, here the snow was really deep (up to the knees) and unfortunately the top layer was ice so it actually started to cut my shins, luckily it was really cold so it did numb the cuts!

Deciding that this was becoming a bit more than we had bargained for we tried to keep to the route and look for a gate that woudl take us back to the road for the last 5 miles back to Crickhowell, unfortunately we coudln't find the gate, and this led to about 5-6 miles of backbreaking, up and down following a fence/wall line just to get us to civilisation. It was at this point that I had to really dig deep as the snow was causing us to slip and lside all ove rthe place and the bikes were just weights that we had to carry along as it was impossible to ride.

Eventually we managed to hit a tarmac road and then it was luscious downhill all the way until the final 2 miles into Crickhowell which were uphill, but as the sun was coming down we were so determined not to be caught out without lights that we powered through the hills and rolled into the Hotel car park just as the sun was setting at 6.10pm.

Cold, wet, absolutely at the end of my endurance I thought about it and agreed that that was the most physically demanding thing I had done since my Army days, my mate who has been embarking on his own journey into fitness was hanging and sinking into a hot bath to thaw out my frozen feet was almost sexual!

2 pints of cider and a great meal later I collapsed into bed completely exhausted but so exhilerated I couldn't sleep!

Really enjoyed the whole weekend but don't want to repeat that experience for a long time!