Brecon Reservoirs 102km

Firstly, some more interest in our tour from the media. We have been contacted this week by the Daily Record, a Scottish national paper, and the Evesham, Cotswold and Tewkesbury Observer. Hopefully this will spread the word a bit more.

Saturday was supposed to be the local Avon Cycleway 130km for me but on rising at 7am the weather looked less than settled and set to be a bad day. I decided to give this ride a miss, seeing as I was going to ride the next day, but I regretted this because it turned out to be a dry day.

Sunday required a reasonably early rise of 6.30am to drive to Merthyr Tydfil for the Brecon Reservoirs 102km audax, spurred on by Chris' excellent 6.5 hours for his 100 mile Iron Mountain Sportive the day before. Driving down the M4, spots on my windscreen made me wonder whether I'd chosen the right day to cycle but it was good to see the friendly faces of the orgnaisers at the start who recognised my from the Dic Penderyn 100 a couple of months ago which I rode with Chris and Dave.

Heading out towards the first checkpoint at Trefechan I realised it was going to be hard going with the wind. In fact I heard later that trees had been blown down across the country. I pushed on with two riders, who found the pace heavy going and fell off the back after Llandew. This left me to cycle on my own to the control at Sennybridge (56km). As I was about to set off again, the next chap turned up so I set off again with him. I dropped him after 8km up a really long drag from Crai, straight into a headwind. Turning off towards Heol Senni, I recognised roads from the Dic Penderyn which took me over the Devil's Staircase. The slightly uphill road leading to it was a real struggle against a direct headwind, slowing me to 6mph but I persevered over the top. On through Penderyn and some long hills and on to the finish at Merthyr rugby club. The organisers weren't expecting anybody back this early and weren't at the finish so I had to ring them to come and meet me! The next guy came in 15 minutes after me.

I completed this 64 mile ride in a total time of 4hrs 25 minutes, an hour faster than the Dic Penderyn and averaged 15mph which I was pleased with in the wind. A tough, testing ride in beautiful scenery.