Abergavenny to Rhayader

Friday September 17
This morning I was politely woken by Mike, because they were all heading to work. Mike must really care about his dog Floyd because he was taking him for a walk in the morning before work. Two walks a day, lucky dog!
Bern made me a cup of tea and we had a chat, she works for the local authority, "telling people to eat more fruit and so forth," she said. And on her day off, she volunteers in a shop called "Vintage Visions", which sells vintage clothing, and also runs sewing and re-styling classes. All the money raised goes into supporting the shop.
Mike and Bern were so kind and generous to me, I was very grateful. Just when I was packing the panniers on the bike getting ready to leave, Dan's wife, the next-door neighbour, came over and gave me a bag full of snacks and energy drink! I was very appreciative. Seems the people of Abergavenny are very generous, judging from the ones I met anyway.
Mum always said you should give with no expectation of receiving anything in return. Seems like what these people did.
I thanked Bern for the hospitality and headed into town.

Mike and Bern's house in the centre of the photo.

Part of the set-up for the impending food and wine festival.

A street in Abergavenny

An old bridge over a river in Abergavenny

I needed to find a Vodafone shop because the Internet wasn't working with the SIM I got through Vodafone. I found a 4u phones place, the blokes advice was to ring up Vodafone and they should be able to sort it out (which I did, for the second time, and they did).
This bloke from 4u was also up for a chat, he reckoned he used to do quite a bit of cycling himself.
I bought the usual groceries and found a spot to eat breakfast. I always like to find a nice spot to eat meals, preferably somewhere with a good view or in a pleasant spot, and with a table. They usually place tables in pleasant spots anyway. There seem to be seats everywhere you go in the UK, and tables are fairly common too, but sometimes require a bit if searching.
The abundance of seats I guess partly makes up for the lack of water taps.
This morning I found a table inside an old castle to eat breakfast at.

An old castle on a hill in Abergavenny

Breakfast at a convenient table inside the ruined castle.

I don't think it was a permanent table though, it was too new. I think it was there for the Abergavenny Food and Wine Festival, which was taking place over the next two days (that's what the tent you can see in the photo was for too.A bloke I met in the main street the night before (just before Mike found me) had said it had grown from just a humble little festival 12 years ago to now a very popular and well known one, which attracts something like 500,000 people. He said it was now so popular that "you could walk across people's heads from one end of the main street to the other."
Bern described in a way I understood as "the Glastonbury of Food and Wine Festivals". She said it attracted lots of middle class people from all around the country.
After breakfast in the castle and a quick look in the museum, I made tracks, taking the route along the quieter roads as Mike had suggested.
At one point the road turned steeply downhill, the first real steep hill I'd come to, and this is when I first realised my brakes were not up to scratch. Seriously I was pulling the levers as hard as I could and I wasn't slowing down! Luckily the steepness decreased before the intersection and I could stop, but it was a bit scary. And I thought surely there would be more similar hills to come.
Before I bought my Surly Long Haul Trucker, when I was in the research stage, I was reading a blog called "ozsoapbox", the author had written a post describing 5 things he'd like to see on the new model of the Long Haul Trucker (LHT):
- better brakes
- the inclusion of a Brooks saddle
- non-flamboyant frame colours
- mudguards
- Schwable Marathon Plus tyres

The brakes have received some criticism, and I would have to agree, they leave something to be desired.
I replaced my saddle with a Brooks and added mudguards, which most people who buy a LHT do straight away. I also ordered some quality tyres (the Vittoria Randonneur Pro, which are similar to the Scwable Marathon tyres, both are meant to be very good for touring). I ordered them about 3 months ago through Wiggle, and they never came (they still haven't!) So I still have the original tyres on there.
From the above list, the frame colour was the only thing they changed in the 2010 model, which is available in blue or black. My 2009 model's colour is called truccachino, which some people aren't a fan of, but I don't mind it.
So anyway, I rode across the top of the Brecon Beacons National Park, which was quite pleasant, less hilly and less exciting than I thought it would be though.

Brecon Beacons National Park

Brecon Beacons National Park

Brecon Beacons National Park

Brecon Beacons National Park

From Brecon I headed north and experienced some of the best riding yet. It was very hilly but the roads were quiet and the surface was very smooth, and a lot of the downhills were without tight bends which meant high speeds were possible (and were reached, hence my maximum speed on the trip so far of 68.4 km/h).

I would love to have been on my road bike! If I lived around there I'd be cycling those roads all the time.
I stopped for a late lunch in a town called Llanfair-ym-Muallt.

Llanfair-ym-Maullt, where I stopped for lunch.

As with many of the Welsh town names, I had no idea how to pronounce it.
I was craving a pizza but I only had the same old tuna and tomato rolls. I was watching a bloke fishing, and not catching anything. Eventually he gave up and stopped by for a chat.
You're probably sick of hearing about all the chats I have with people, but this was probably the most enjoyable one yet. We were really on the same wavelength and shared the same philosophies on life. He was also a cyclist and followed the pro cycling (in fact he had some professional cycling friends). So we talked about that, he told me one time he was cycling up L'Alpe d'Huez with a mate and was about 1 km from the top when it dropped about 20 degrees to -15 within a few minutes, a blizzard must have blown over, so he said to his mate "I'm turning around". He reckoned it was so cold he was on the point of hypothermia, and was pedaling with the brakes applied on the descent to try and keep warm.
I didn't get his name but you can see him walking off in this photo.

The fisherman I had a chat to walking off in the centre of the photo.

By the time I got going again it was just about dark.

The river in Llanfair-ym-Maullt

I wanted to get to the next town though, so I rode about 20 km in the dark and stopped in a town called Rhayader.

I couldn't resist buying fish and chips, from a supposedly award winning fish and chip shop.

The fish and chip shop in Rhayader.

And they were quite delicious. While I was eating them in a park, two women walking a dog stopped by and asked if I'd lost a first aid kit. I told them I hadn't actually brought one with me. They said they'd found one lying in the middle of the road and saw that I was a cyclist and thought I might have been the one who lost it. They gave it to me anyway.
I thought this was pretty lucky because I needed a first aid kit. But could it have been a sign that I was about to get injured? I decided to look at it in another way: if you have it, you don't need it. Just like when you have your puncture repair kit and pump, you don't get a puncture, but the one day you forget the pump is the day you get a puncture. This has happened to me quite a few times, and I think the same can be said for many other situations. So being given the first aid kit was a good omen. I hope.
I found spot to pitch the tent in the park by the river, wrote my blog, and went to sleep.

Ride stats
Distance: 108.14 km
Average: 16.3 km/h
Maximum: 68.4 km/h
Time: 6:36:32