North Wales Coastal Path Day 2 : Conwy to Holyhead via NCR 5 & 8
Genuinely that is the most traumatic, shambolic, chaotic and frustrating days I’ve had on a bike in the 20 years of doing this. Worse than losing my phone and booking the wrong ferry back from Belfast, worse than putting in the walking route in the Garmin at the start of the John Muir way, way worse than the Etape or any of the unbelievably hard days of JOGLE and Dec wasn’t even here!
Stay tuned for how far you can ride a gravel bike on a completely flat tyre after pinch flatting the 2 spare inner tubes you have, how to not manage to pass a single place to eat or drink in 30 miles, how to smash your only water bottle without realising and find you’ve no water or anything to drink in the middle of nowhere, how not to bring enough clothes when there’s a block 50mph head wind all day and hailstones like marbles, how to book a room in a pub so dirty it makes the scene with the toilet from trainspotting look like the Ritz, and may, many more self imposed cock ups, AND Dec wasn’t even here!!!
In the distance were the upper slopes of Graiglwyd which had been mined intensively during the Industrial Revolution as this mountain provided the “Setts” for the new roads springing up as towns increased in size, being transported the 300 meters down the mountain by wagons by a series of self activating inclines before being loaded onto ship to be sent to Liverpool. I got a closer look at the mountain as the path veered back over the A55 this time to split it and go over the tunnel in what can only be described as bike staircases!
Piling down the other side, the sky up ahead looked very threatening. I was completely exposed by the side of the A55 and there was no cover anywhere as the hailstones began to fall. It was properly painfull as my speed plummeted to around 4mph on the flat just looking down at my front wheel to keep my face out of the wind. It must be what being shot blasted must feel like. I thought it’ll be over in a couple of minutes, but no it lasted around 30 minutes. I was absolutely soaking, freezing cold and as I hadn’t any breakfast of any sort, bloody hungry. I’d only done just over 13 miles in nearly 2 hours and I was thinking what my options were. I did think of what Dec would do in the situation. There was a train line that ran pretty much parallel to the route today with many, many stops and would take me to Holyhead in about 40 minutes. I mean who would know? I could just do the blog, say I had a problem with my phone, boom! As we have established over the years, we have a different take on “cheating” however, so despite the thought briefly passing through my mind, I squelched back on my bike and set sail (literally) for Bangor, the Menai Bridge and hopefully something to eat!!!
Down into the port and the steep but short climb into Bangor. The town centre was up another big hill, so following the route which wasn’t up into the town I dropped down with the Menai Straight on my right and headed for Thomas Telfords magnificent bridge. Built in 1826 as the worlds first suspension bridge, it joined, my now quite long list, of famous bridges I’ve cycled over, but not before I got slightly panicked by the warning signs saying no cyclist, caravans or motorcycles due to high winds on the big flashing sign by the roundabout! Thankfully it was for the bigger new bridge further up, but it still needed some brave pills with my frame bag acting like a big sail as I wrestled the bike across it.
It was definitely time for something to eat, it was 11.55 and I’d done 21 miles in 3 hours. Over the bridge the little town of funnily enough, Menai Bridge offered a number of cafes and as it was starting to hail again, the first one would do! I’d just managed to get in for the full Welsh breakfast which finished at midday and a large cappuccino to try and warm me up was made short order of. I really wanted to stay in here as the windows shook and the hail smacked again them. It took some super human willpower to pull on the sopping gloves and hat and set off across Anglesey.
There was a Waitrose coming out of town, but I didn’t want to take the gloves off and put them back on and I thought to myself Anglesey is a big place, they’ll be other opportunities in the next 30 miles to get somewhere and I had one water bottle full on the fork leg. I mean it’s only 30 miles, I’d be done and in the room of the pub I’d booked for 4, no problem…
In came the rain again as the very quiet back roads went up and down and I just concentrated on making myself as small as possible on the bike and just doing it a mile at a time. Passing through the excellently named Llanddaniel Fab, the sun even came out for 15 minutes, making me feel a bit better. I was getting worried about getting something to eat and drink though. There was nothing in these tiny hamlets I was cycling through sporadically, just a sign post and a couple of houses. The incessant wind got worse as I drooped down from the rolling hills to what looked like a navigation channel and the lack of any sort of tree cover or stone walls that had been helping meant I was doing 3mph on the flat straight into it. I was having Connemara style flashbacks from Ireland end to end, but at least then I had 3 other idiots along to lighten the load, this time I was on my own. I was sore from trying to ball myself up out of the wind, wet, cold and hungry. As I turned off the navigation channel the headwind turned into a crosswind, the sun made another appearance there was 10 miles left and it was 3pm. I still had half a bottle left, even if I didn’t find anywhere to get something to eat or drink, as long as nothing else went wrong, say a puncture, I’d be able to tough it out…
That feeling in the pit of your stomach as the back wheel starts snaking around is unsettling at the best of times, but in the middle of nowhere when you’re tired, wet and cold it’s awful. Pulling to the side of the single track lane in front of a farm gate, I dismounted like Douglas Barder and assessed the damage. Yep rear wheel puncture. Out with the tools and the bike was upside down and the back wheel off in a few minutes. It was obvious what had happened as there was a massive hawthorn sticking in the back tyre puncturing the inner tube. The new Ribble has new fancy dan “tubeless” wheels and tyres which means you can set them up like a car tyre meaning you don’t need to use inner tubes. Do you think I’d done this?! Of course not. The problem with putting tubes in is they are a bugger to get the tyre back on the rim. Replacing the inner tubes with one of the two I’d brought, after 30 minutes of cursing and grunting I managed to get the tyre back on but had snapped one of the tyre levers doing it. Pumped up the tyre, nothing. I must have pinch flatted it when breaking the tyre lever. At that precise moment it started to hail again and the wind blew the bike over smashing the screen on the Garmin and ejecting the water bottle from the fork leg. I just stood there and laughed at what a genuine clusterfuck I am!
With no other option to start all over again this time with wet cold numb hands it took me 45 minutes to do precisely the same thing again. I wasn’t laughing now. That was the last of the tubes and I was shivering quite violently. I’d been here nearly an hour and a half and I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I reached for the usual solution to these situations I get myself into and thought I’d ring Andrea, crying, and get her to sort it all out! No phone signal. Panic rising, I thought sit down finish your water and have a think. The fall from the bottle cage had split the bottle, there was no water left. Well this would be an appropriate way to go when they find my cold lifeless body in the morning next to a broken bike I thought before pulling myself together and looking at the options. As Andrea well knows in an immediate crisis I’m absolutely useless and fall apart like Tottenhams defence. Once I’ve had a bit of time to digest, then the stubborn obstinate practicle part of me kicks in and I can get shit done!
Option 1 I could push the bike to somewhere with a phone signal and maybe call a cab. Option 2 same but see if there was a rail station near by on google maps and get the train to Holyhead. Option 3 how far can you ride on a completely flat tyre without it disintegrating or coming off the rim? At least it would warm me up and stop the shivering? Option 3 chosen, I loaded the bike up again and wobbled off down the road.
I’ll not lie it was a bit sketchy, especially going down hill. Slaloming about like Frans Klammer (reference for the kids there) I decided 10 mph was fast enough going down hill, and I wasn’t doing more than 6-7 mph on the flat anyway because if the wind. Stopping every mile to make sure the tyre was holding up, I inched closer and closer to Holyhead.
Past the RAF base and across the causeway of Holyhead Bay leaning into the wind like a moto GP rider to cope with the crosswinds, there was just time for the worst hailstorm of the day to make the mud path into town a quagmire and for me to have to get of and push and the sign for Holyhead was right in front of me. Somehow I’d made it
Riding the last 2 miles, the rear tyre making increasingly alarming noises as the hail lashed my face, I realised I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to assess the charms of Holyhead but bugger me it was rough. I’ve seen my fair share of down at heel Welsh towns {Bargoed, Tredegar, Abertillery to name 3 I can spell) through work but this was on a different scale. It looked shell shocked and I was having severe reservations about my £28 room I’d booked in the centre of town as all I wanted to do was have a hot shower and forget all about today’s debacle. At last the Stanley Arms hoved into view.
My god. On one of the first bike trips we did to Norfolk and Suffolk on the last night me and Frankie went for a celebratory drink in a pub in Swaffham. The state of the pub has gone down in folklore but the Stanley Arms was far, far worse. I was too tired to do anything else so locked the bike and went to check in. There was a table of maybe 10 adults and kids by the window smoking. In the pub. The carpet was absolutely filthy and the guy setting up the disco for Saturday nights entertainment was calling everyone the c word. I simply turned round, went outside into the hail and wobbled back down the high street. I’d prefer to sleep in a bus shelter than in there! A quick google and there was a Travel lodge in town. I just went straight there and paid for a room. They let me take my sodden dripping, broken bike up to my room, although to be honest I’d have been quite happy just to set it alight in the car park!
After the best, hottest shower I’d ever had and raiding the vending machine for drinks and chocolate (I’d had nothing to eat for nearly 6 hours) I looked to see if there was anywhere nice to eat. Short answer was there isn’t. There was a Chinese takeaway I went past on the way to the travel lodge, I’ll just go there as it was once again lashing down. Got there, and it was cash only. Of course it was! Back to the hotel to get some cash and frankly the worst Chinese meal I’ve ever had the misfortune to taste finished of a bleak day bleakly. I must be off my chuffin rocker…
Summary of the ride then! Like supporting a crap football team or 10 like I do, if it wasn’t for the bad days, the good days wouldn’t be so fantastic! I know I moaned a bit yesterday, but I had a fantastic day. Today was, even by my high standards a shitshow of the highest order. I can blame no one but myself as the usual people who do get the blame (Dec, Frankie, Kieran and Conleth) aren’t here. You do learn something about yourself when things go spectacularly pear shaped though and I’ve enough self awareness to know that I get massively over confident in my own abilities, despite no real evidence to back that up, have either a positive outlook that things will end ok in the end or hubris ( you decide!), but can be a stubborn and determined pain in the arse when the chips are down and I’ve a point to prove. And I guess it’s made for a good blog! I also haven’t given one single thought about work today, mainly as I was concentrating on not dying of exposure…🤣
Train back tomorrow and of course they replaced the Manchester Huddersfield train with a replacement bus service which won’t take bikes, so it’s 5 hours home via Sheffield. I’ve then got the bin fire of my work inbox to deal with, but before that I’m going to give my beautiful wife and kids a big hug and promptly fall asleep on the settee…
As KC reminded me today, it ends, it always ends…
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