King Of The Mountains

1 August - More cricks in the neck today - despite leaving relatively early me and Louis had what I thought was a fairly short Welsh breakfast but we must have ditehred because a couple of passing cyclists informed us we were at the back of the pack. A few accidental detours meant that we were really behind schedule - supposed to meet at Camarthen castle for lunch and when we finally made it there were no bikes to be seen. Asked the friendly guard if he'd seen any to which he replied in the negative and then asked him the time and he said 20 to 4. The directions we'd been given mentioned seemed to imply that the quickest way to get to the destination of Fishguard was to take the lanes and villages - what was only slightly implied was that they were kind of hilly. From Meidrim to Llanboidy to Cefynpat and Llanglydwen I found myelf on the toughest terrain I have ever ridden on a bike short of the mountains (where I at lkeast had a mountain bike). Constant descents or ascents of at least 20 degrees - some of them going for at least a mile - not so bad when you know the road and you know when you might have to stop but we had no knowledge beyond the next 10m at times and with both of us riding brakeless it was agonising as we hop skidded all the way which was followed by climbs so severe that w had to just walk the bikes up. As the roads ere so bad we were so determined not to get lost (as we had in the morning) that we frequently engaged the locals for advice - I can understand the irish, I can understand the scottish, I have a fairly good grasp of most of the english but the welsh just floor me. After babbling and gesticulatng for a few minutes the only discernible words were the frequent signoff statemet, 'Djaunderstandme?' - no sir, I didn't. Plan was to be back at Fishguard before 630 so we could get the ferry to ireland but that wasn't going to happen - our target was just getting there before it got dark. And we did. And upon arrival (pretty close to DFL) it turned out that we were one of the a very select group who even rode the mountains (well, hhills but steep ones) and there were even fewer who rode them on fixies so we were gods amongst men. Next ferry not until 230am and I need to get some sleep ...