Amblers Club Run - Sunday 15 May

[Mark Pope]

It's forecast to be dry and sunny this Sunday so I propose a bit of easy (ish) climbing as well as a trip to the seaside. The route is:

Brackla - Coychurch - Pencoed - the Common - Bryncethin - Black mill - Llangeinor - Bettws - Shwt - Maesteg - the Bryn - Cwmafan - Pontrhydyfen - Efail fach - Cimla -Briton Ferry - Margam - Water Street - kenfig - Porthcawl - 3 Steps Hill - Laleston - Bridgend - Brackla

It's around 53 miles with a coffee stop planned at the Broomwagon. See you Sunday.

Mark

[Nick Langley]

I'm in. See you there

[Mark Pope]

Good to have you back Nick. See you tomorrow.

Mark

[Mark Pope]

Eleven Ambler's left Brackla this morning on what was 'officially' a perfect day for a bike ride. We headed out to Pencoed via Coychurch before crossing the Common and then heading up to Black mill and climbing over Llangeinor from the easy (ish) side. We then climbed up over Bettws and up to Maesteg to head up over the Bryn and a lovely descent to the Afan Valley. We were all impressed with Tom's new super light carbon Colnago (in club colours) but perplexed to see Tom actually changing gear for the first time in nearly a year. In fact rumours are circulating that he used the little ring when climbing the Bryn, which we suspect he did to save his lovely new bike not his own legs!

After a short leg up the Afan Valley we turned West at Pontrydyfen and enjoyed the cheeky little lumps that rear up on the road to Cimla. After a nice descent to Neath and Briton Ferry Andy Storrie came to the front and our average speed picked up just a tad! We took a quieter 'longcut' on the way back and gave it a bit of stick on the new road past Ta Ta Steel where we dragged our average speed up from Zimmer Frame to Ferrari like speeds. We mostly kept this up all the way to Porthcawl where we rewarded ourselves to coffee and cake, but sadly didn't catch up with mine host Paul Longhorn who is apparently away for the weekend chatting to his accountant in the Cayman Islands.

After coffee we headed home via 3 Steps Hill and Laleston. All told we did around 56 miles with just under 1000 metres of climbing. The average speed was a bit fuzzy depending on whether you were using a reliable Garmin or my dodgy Motorola phone, but I think it was about 16.5mph. Ambling around the various valleys today were:

Tom
Chris Reed
Tony M
Chris Matthews ( Guest)
Lee ( climbing like Sherpa Tensing on oxygen)
Nick Langley
Richard B
Roy 2
Jonathan Slinks
Andrew Storrie
Mark P

[Tom]

Excellent ride today thanks Mark-yes I was trying not to mis-treat the bike-it won't last long.
By the way cycling is even less popular in our house now. I was picking the brains of 1 or 2 Amblers as to why we suddenly had no hot water. I had to call out the Gas Engineer who quickly established that all the cycling shoes and helmets placed in the airing cupboard to dry out had dislodged a wire which he reconnected in the 2 minutes he was here-at a call out fee of £50.
Needless to say all cycling paraphernalia has been unceremoniously banished from the airing cupboard sine die
(ps hope it isn't Ta Ta to steel at PT!)

[ron b]

Hot water , how posh is that, and a new bike too

[chris matt]

Thanks to all today ,had a great day today with Marks tours , reminiscent of Majorca  , Tom has finally found the small ring , nice new bike Tom .

[Nick Langley]

Great ride today guys, and awesome weather...really enjoyed it