— bikes and things

I’ve been meaning to write this up for a while now as it was such a superb weekend. We left London on the Friday after work and headed up to Abergorlech where I had booked a holiday cottage for the five of us for the weekend – Vaughan, Matt, Marc, Graham and myself. The cottage is owned by the guys who run the Black Lion which is just a few doors up.

Our trip from London was fairly epic, but a lot easier for myself and Matt, as Vaughan had kindly offered to drive in his newly converted VW van. After escaping the Hammersmith traffic we headed up the M4 leaving icy cold London behind, cue impromptu singalong to The Smiths, Hatful of Hollow as well as a few old 90s rave tracks. We reached the end of the M4 by around 10pm and the route I had plotted with my phone was sub-optimal at best crap. I managed to take us the back route which included a a snow covered peak with drifts of snow and ended in sheet ice on hills we were trying to climb and not forgetting a narrow ford crossing with sheet ice either side. The van handled it all with ease with the only concern being that we might miss last orders. Fortunately we made it just in time to sink a pint of Guinness and meet up with Graham and Marc who had travelled earlier – and taken the main road route which was far less exciting.

M4 – lots of it.