Piers Palmer
Penwythnos yn nhir y ddraig
After a hard week pushing pixels, bunking off early on a Friday always feels good. Especially when you’re heading off to spend the weekend in a log cabin in Wales, exploring the valleys by foot and by bike.
Last Friday, 6 members of the team +1 ex-member, downed tools early, loaded up cars with supplies and bikes and hit the M4. A few bottles of badger beer later, the Severn Bridge had been crossed and we had arrived in the Land of the Dragon.
Free-minded sleeping arrangements
Dumping our kit off at our log cabin, it was obvious that only having 2 beds between 7 of us wasn’t going to accommodate the sleeping habits of even the most free-minded of us. However the allocation of the beds went surprisingly smoothly with Jo & Romeo pairing up on the sofabed and Nick & Paul getting some air bed action in.
Like all ultra-athletes on the cusp of starting an event, we needed to ‘carb-up’ and headed straight for the local pub to enjoy a few pints of Flowers, a variety of breaded starters, some excellent steak and a Welsh leek.
Race challenge
Jo challenged me to a race the following morning to pick up the car which he only very narrowly won (under a second in it), my extra bulk had me streaks ahead on the downhill, but Jo’s fitness pulled him through on the road section.
Kyan Mountain biking weekend, Afan Valley from Kyanmedia on Vimeo.
Brutal climbs, emergency exits & powercuts
We headed off to the Glyncorrwg Mountain Bike Centre to do the Skyline trail, a brutal climb up a rock-strewn singletrack trail which finally (!) gave way to epic views across the wind turbines of the Afan valley. A few hours later, the heavens opened and after a ‘shortcut’ led us directly onto a ‘longcut’, Paul made the executive decision to use the emergency exit trail to get us back to the car. Wet, freezing, knackered and a few of us vowing not to get back on a bike again, we returned to a powercut log cabin and booted up the barbeque.
We reckoned we could cook everything we needed for our meal on the bar-b and wrapped all our food up in tin foil in the hope that it would cook ‘well enough’. The butterflied leg of lamb turned out beautifully and even though the potato salad was a little burnt, it was all eaten.
The day’s trials had started to take their toll and we returned to the Colliers in an attempt to wake ourselves up. Vain hope. We were all in bed by midnight listening to the gentle drone of Nick’s snoring and rhythmic creaking of Jo & Romeo’s sofabed.
Bikers vs Walkers
Paul & Phil were suffering from sore buttock syndrome and joined Nick on his Welsh walking adventures, whilst Romeo & Ped tackled the final descent of The Wall, a speedy zig-zag of a trail down the side of the Valley before meeting Ollie & Jo for a more sedate spin across the countryside along an abandoned railway track. A top weekend, thanks to everyone who came and thanks to Katie for her organising skills.
What did we learn this weekend?
- Burnt potato salad tastes ok
- It helps to do some training before tackling a monstrous 36km trail
- It only takes 5 web developers to fit a bike rack onto the back of a car
- Ham sandwiches taste better with cheese
- Nick’s got the loudest snore in the office
…and dragons do exist, albeit of the non-winged variety.
Tags: cookery, drinking, mountainbiking
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