It was a hilly one for the pacers today - excellent route from Rob.
Steve Chapman, Jason T, Rob J, Chris and yours truly set off East until Llantrisant where we headed up the hill to Penycoedcae. As soon as we hit the bottom of the descent of that it was up Graigwen - hard climb, but great road at the top to Llanwonno. Descent to Perthcelyn, then at Abercynon we headed up to Gelligaer Common, then back down Rob's favourite descent to Merthyr Garden Village. Then we headed up a nice gentle climb onto the common between Nelson and Senghennydd (tricky descent), and on to Caerphilly. At this point someone usually comes up with an excuse to not go up the mountain, but nobody could think of one, so we toiled up in the heat and stopped at the cafe. After descent to Tongwynlais we then headed up the ridiculously steep Garth Mountain climb - not helped by a generous sprinkling of sand that sat at the steep hairpin. Thereafter Rob lead us through some cyclocross trails until we emerged at Cross Inn. Rob was on his cycloX bike, the rest of us contemplated some bike cleaning this afternoon.
A lot of steep climbs - I think we all agreed this was a lot tougher than a Bwlch/Rhigos/Maerdy combo. Really enjoyable though, and some new climbs for me. Gwaelod-y-Garth was amusing, but I'll not be adding it to my commute.
Good climbing by all today - but Chris must have taken it easy on his TT yesterday judging by the way he rode away from the group up to Senghennydd common.
