Late to the party, but snowy...

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Shedbrewed
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun May 22, 2016 6:37 pm

Late to the party, but snowy...

Post by Shedbrewed »

Also I'll come clean from the outset and this was a bothy trip, although with bivi bags taken just in case the bothy was full...
It wasn't as the forecast was poor.
Day one was a train journey to meet my accomplice, Dave on the train to Newtown, at Shrewsbury.
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A lumpy ride along mixed lanes, bridleways and roads saw us in Rhayader in early afternoon after seeing only 6 cars until we got to Rhayader.
A late pub lunch and pint and then out along the access roads and NCN/bridleway to get to Lluest Cwm Bach bothy on the North Eastern shore of Craig Goch reservoir, the highest in the Elan Valley.
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The next morning was rather more snowy and the planned exit route over the top of Waun Fign and then North towards Llangurig was shelved halfway up the climb. This was always going to be a bit hike-a-bikey but with deep snow forming it was definitely a lot of hump-a-bike.
After almost 2 hours we got to the bridleway, where we remounted, sporadically.
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For 100 glorious yards I was riding my bike again, and then without any shifting, the rear derailleur munched into the rear wheel. Splitting the chain and removing the DR we carried on further to the loo block at the dam, where I was able to shorten the chain and create a singlespeed, with a small 44" gear.
After a steady ride on a bowstring-tight chain we got to Rhayader, 3 1/2 hours after we had left the bothy. Breakfast at a cafe and reappraisal of the timescales to get our trains home. We decided to head to Pen Y Bont to get the train to Shrewsbury.
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Pen Y Bont station was quiet... Arriva confirmed the train was still running. Half an hour they confirmed the train was cancelled.
So we rode up to Newtown and managed to find an open chippy to enjoy as we had time to spare before the train arrived.
A tough one, for us.
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