Uphill Cycling

There's a feeling that Spring is on its way. The days are starting to become noticeably longer and there a splash of colour appearing in the garden. 

With my next alpine trip fast approaching, I decided that I better start getting my legs in shape for some ski touring fitness. The mountains were still cloudy in the morning, so we decided to head straight uphill on bikes towards Elidr Fawr and the Marchlyn reservoir. There's little in the way of warming up on this ride, so I was soon getting the required leg pump! 

Instead of climbing the peak, we chose to follow the access road up to the top of the quarries to the Surge Pool for the electric mountain power station. I'd never actually taken the turn off before, so it was great to get some new views from an area we frequent so often. At the end of the tarmac, we munched sandwiches, while watching some paragliders.

After 520m of hill climbing, we wrapped up and braced ourselves for some biting windchill on the descent.

Clare shot off first and I followed with a whoop! An empty smooth road, great views, and no peddling required. A fine reward for the mornings slog! You could reach some terrifying speeds on this descent, but we tried to keep to a conservative speed of anything under 50km/h, which still felt exhilaratingly speedy!

As we rode over the moors back to The Cottage, the clouds cleared to reveal a slight dusting of snow and a beautiful panorama of the Carneddau. Lovely. Pancakes and coffee provided the perfect apres peddle...