Rhondda and the Rhigos

18th June 2016

With my bike now fixed I was keen to test it out, we hadn’t planned to ride together this weekend as Lara was at a wedding and it was Father’s Day on Sunday. Andy had said he was going to go out Friday instead but as the weather was bad he hadn’t gone. A quick message on Friday and I arranged to meet Andy at 8.30 on Saturday morning.

Unfortunately, last week I missed out on the ride over the Rhigos mountain but Andy suggested that we do the ride again and I was looking forward to it. I got to Andy’s house just before 8.30 and off we set. We had only done a couple of km when we had to stop as an alum key (for the non-cyclists this is an essential tool for your bike) came flying out the back of Andy’s bike as he hadn’t zipped up his saddlebag.

So off we set again with Andy leading the way, this was a new route for me so I didn’t know exactly where we were going but I did go in front when I could to take some of the wind. It made a change going on a new route although being a Saturday there were a lot of cars around and some of them get a little too close for comfort.

We headed out towards Pontypridd, through Porth, Tonypandy and Gelli until we got to Treorchy and a stop before we tackled the Rhigos mountain. While in Treorchy Andy realised that he hadn’t started his Strava and had missed recording about 35km of his ride.

We set off again and headed up the Rhigos, I was unsure of how fast to go having never ridden it before. I kept a good pace going and the views on the way up were stunning, I enjoyed the ride up the Rhigos and will be doing it again. The descent is also amazing and after one switch back the descent is very straight and very fast. Andy had shot off on the way down and I was peddling as fast as I could to catch him but never managed it before we got to the bottom.

After coming off the Rhigos we headed through Hirwaun and onto Aberdare, from Aberdare the pace picked up until we got to Mountain Ash were Andy had a close shave with an ambulance that got a little close. From Mountain Ash down to Pontypridd the pace eased off a little until I went in front again and picked it up. By this time, I was on for a fast 40km and didn’t really want to ease off.

From Pontypridd we headed along the Taff Trail back to Taffs Well although we did have to get off our bikes at one stage due to a fallen tree, unfortunately there was no way round it only over it. Shortly afterwards we parted ways, I added a little more distance onto the ride to make it up to 100km.

With only 90 days to go until our September riding challenge from North to South Wales we have set up a couple of giving pages and if you would like to support us the pages can be accessed via the following links:

Andy is raising funds for the MS Society and his Just giving page can be accessed via https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Andy-Lloyd10

I (Mike) am raising funds for Mind and my Virgin Money Giving page can be accessed via http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MikeShevyn

All donations to either Andy or myself are appreciated and you will be helping two very worthy causes.

In the next blog look out for Andy and Lara’s adventure in Usk …………………..

#Chains #Repairs