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General Category => Club Runs => Topic started by: RobC on December 31, 2022, 04:30:34 PM
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New year, new you? Pacer(ish) jaunt to Ammanford. Coffee at Coaltown if it's open / queue isn't stupid. Or in Ammanford city centre. Monday rules apply, so it's a 9am start from Parc Slip nature reserve car park.
https://www.komoot.com/tour/195753056
GPX attached.
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The Pacers’ Bank Holiday ride began from Parc Slip carpark with the new location either almost catching everyone out, or showing how accurately we can all arrive at a location moments before the scheduled leaving time. Setting off on a cold but bright morning were Paul, Nige, Mark R and me. Plus fresh-faced youngster, Rich L joining us even through there was a hill on the route.
We headed west on familiar roads through Margam before calling on Rich’s famed knowledge of seedy back lanes to see us out of Port Talbot and onto a bike path next to the M4 heading to Skewen. It was here that we paused to marvel at Rich’s aesthetically pleasing and functionally useless tyre levers while offering the usual Pacers’ words of encouragement to anyone battling an inner-tube.
Mark headed back at this point leaving the rest of us to continue to Clydach and then up the pretty, but long climb of most of Mynydd y Gair, and then the dreary and still pretty long climb to the very top. Long, steep and twisty descent into Ammanford where the corners kept you guessing; would the next turn be greasy? Or greasy and gravelly? Coffees and cake at Coaltown courtesy of Rich who was celebrating his previous day’s birthday.
Now heading home we picked up the windy (not windy) cycle path along the river. Our fearsome reputation among the under 8s cemented when a small boy wiped out on a leaf strewn corner while distracted by our imposing physiques. Few lumps on the way back including some grotty little lanes between Pontardawe and Neath I don’t think any of us had ridden before. Over Cimla, and then Bryn (where Paul lost concentration for a moment and found himself riding on the front), Maesteg golf club hill, and Nige giving us a nice tow back towards Bridgend.