Nothing like a day off to brighten your spirits! A local bike shop kindly provided replacement tubes for Julies puncture fest on the way into Bristol, and a long lie in provided a heavenly respite from the dreaded cycling. I have never been a TV watcher (I don't even own one) but I was amazed to find myself diligently watching a Cricket match on TV by late morning and showing a genuine interest in the rules. I had expected the journey to change me in some ways, but I don't think this was strictly what I had in mind! 

A civilised evening at a Tapas Bar followed by some live music topped off a perfectly relaxed day and left Julie wondering why there weren't any good looking guys in Bristol. It left me wondering why she was wondering about why there weren't any good-looking guys in Bristol. Surely our summer 'holiday' wasn't adversely affecting our relationship'A gentle questioning session later that night did show some reservations regarding the physical challenge ahead (not dissimilar to my own!) but didn't seem to involve plans to run away or do anything unpleasant to me with a spare spoke. Life was seemingly all right again, and I marvelled at my own ability to be so short sighted and changeable.

Early the next day during another perfectly cool and clean early morning start I slipped on my freshly washed cycling kit and looked idly at the maps for the day, whilst marvelling at my shorts new found ability to bend whilst feeling soft and smooth. A double take! I looked again. After the silent prayers of thanks had taken place I casually mentioned to Julie that our days riding had been significantly shortened by MY genius decision to extend our last days riding into Bristol (I told you I was short sighted and changeable). The look she gave me said it all really, I think it was mostly pity, but she topped it off by handing me the days maps (an event unheard of since my minor faux pas in Cornwall') and telling me to get on with it. 

I rode up an old shortcut I remembered from my dim and distant past of living in Bristol and marvelled at how beautiful the city was. I had forgotten, and was lost in a world of reminiscing and breathing hard as we climbed out of the valley up onto the ridge that formed the outskirts of town. Perhaps I spent a little too long reminiscing and not enough time map reading but the exit from the suburbs wasn't quite as smooth as I had anticipated, those pesky 1:50000 maps had almost done for me again. Luckily I managed to salvage the route without too many cock-ups or extra Km's and led us out and northwards towards the Severn Bridge. 

An early food stop on the flood plains alongside the river led us to some intriguing ruins where once a ferry clearly plied its trade across the treacherous flowing waters. The area was derelict and downtrodden and was overshadowed by the huge southern buttress of the Severn Bridge towering over us. For me the next thirty minutes were really cool. Being and engineer and having crossed the bridge on a motorbike and in a car many times it was excellent to wander over on the cycle path, stop, and marvel at the slightly hazy view and the huge height of the road over the rivers surface (We just don't build stuff like this any more. There are 1-bed flats in my hometown of Manchester smaller than a single granite block on those supporting towers!).

Not being too keen on heights we soon moved on and rolled off the other end of the structure feeling warm and contented by our lazy flat days riding. 

A mere 30km into the day and feeling just a little frisky due to my severe lack of extreme testing exercise over the past 36 hours I began to amuse myself in the best way a man can. NO, not like that! But, by annoying Julie. As she rode along I would ride up stealthily (or so I imagined) behind her and pinch her bum. Oh, how I laughed, GOD I was funny. Well, for a short while anyway until somehow whilst in the middle of a stealth pinch I mistimed a small dimple in the road, whipped my bars around 90 degrees and began eating gravel'

OH, how Julie laughed! Cow. No sympathy to be had there then. I believe the technical term is a, 'self inflicted wound'. Either way my left hand suffered quite badly and my thumb took over 6 months to heal properly. Top nob marks there then!

The rest of the day passed easily as we drifted through commuter belt millionaire horse based smallholdings and beautiful villages. Initial food fears were confirmed after we failed to find a single pub serving food after 3:30pm, but all was well as yet another top pie shop appeared in the nick of time and stopped too many stomach rumblings. Life was good, the sun was hot, and I had eaten precisely zero soda farls for nearly 48 hours, I was seriously hoping for a return to normal bowel operation if I could just sustain the current situation for a day or two more. A short 57km day on top of a day's break was amazing and left us wondering what it would have been like halving our regular 100km daily mileage and sampling the local fayres a little more frequently. Undoubtedly excellent, but too costly on money and time for our tastes we decided. It's funny how two days of ease removes the painful memories'

Our target for the day was Abergavenny, gateway to the Brecon Beacons and the off road wilderness we had both secretly been dreading. An easy arrival at around 5pm ended our spell of contented happiness as we soon realised what a god-awful place we had booked ourselves into, it was one of the most expensive stops on the trip and by far the worst quality. As Julie noted in the diary, '1st impressions count and first impressions of Abergavenny were BAD!', a locked door, broken shower, no soap, 1964 TV, screaming kids, and revving dirt bikes were some of the delights we suffered that evening, but in truth not even the appallingly bad takeaway could really squash the pleasant relaxed feeling we both had regarding the past few days. Oh yes, the break had been nice'

30 mins after an unordered greasy death breakfast arrived at our table, (which we skilfully avoided by repeated trips to the cereal section, I had now graduated onto 6 single portions of Alpen packs a day if I could get them') we were riding out of Abergavenny looking forward to a MONSTER day. We knew it would be a real killer but we felt ready.

4km later as I turned right up the first hill of the day a local guy stuck his head out of his car window, 'bloody hell, you'll be fit if you ever get to the top of this!', his sing song voice announced. I smiled sweetly at him. 'Bloody locals, what do they know?' I muttered. We were hardened Lands Ender's. We knew hardship; we knew about hills, we'd just ridden from Cornwall for gods' sake! I dropped a few cogs and settled down to the grinding task ahead. Three minutes later as I pushed my right pedal down the front wheel involuntarily lifted off the gravel surface, I leaned a bit more forward. One minute after that my head was so far forward I swear I could see the contact patch of the front tyre as it hit the ground. One more minute after that I stopped, my legs burning. Julie slogged past. One minute after that Julie stopped, her legs burning. We looked at the map'A delightful track wound from sea level to 400m over only 2km. The Breacon Beacons had begun. 

It's not for no reason that the SAS choose to train here in preference to any other area in the UK. I spoke to a friend of mine who spent some time with the aforementioned forces and he told me that the sheer verticality of the gradients, hostile nature of the boggy tops, and exposed rocky ridges together with the remoteness make this area one of the harshest wilderness environments to train in the UK. Despite its lovely looks on summer days it has been responsible for killing off no small quantity of Parachute Regiment soldiers and experienced SAS men. After that first day I had no difficulty believing any of it.

6km after leaving Abergavenny we were back at sea level''The last 4km had taken us up to 400m and then cruelly right back down again. The pattern began. Even early in the day we thanked our lucky stars that we were only trying to get across the Brecons by the easiest route possible and not actually 'doing anything complex'. There was no doubt that some of the finest riding of the trip took place over the next 12 hours, but when we finally arrived at 'The Bache' B & B 14 hours after we started having covered 80km and over 3000m of ascent we were (or so we thought') comprehensively knackered.

Our second slog from sea level took us up 10km of road to the Grwyne Reservoir at 500m. A stop at a stream to cool our feet at the 7km mark was a heavenly highlight I can remember, but the rest of the 10km climb to get there was purely hot grind as the Sun pumped out another 30 Degree day and forest boundaries mocked us by throwing their shade on the grass verges of the track but rarely onto its gravel surface. 

As we finally crested the wall of the reservoir we found a clump of trees, stopped, and began the eating and digestion game of forcing down soda farls and weak apple juice in an attempt to claw back some much needed glycogen. I already knew my heartbeat had been writing checks my liver and muscles couldn't sustain, and that my glycogen levels were far too low to keep up this pace for the rest of the day. Now that I knew first hand about bonking I wasn't going to voluntarily offer myself to the god of misery, even if it did mean eating soda farls and removing any likelihood of normal bowel operation in the foreseeable future.

We were joined by sheep, a horse, and some glorious views over the man made lake. A cool breeze washed over us and just for a few minutes it was heaven. The few tourists who had wandered this far were having a picnic in the distance and I wondered about nipping over and begging for food scraps'I'm sure they wouldn't have minded really!

The map said the trail ran along the side of the lake and naturally that's the way we set off. The next 2km carrying the bikes up 200m of knee deep heather wasn't exactly what the doctor ordered, but then nor was the bog on top. By the time we topped out at 700m we needed a pretty special 'something' to cheer us up, and BOY did we get it! If I'd have cross referenced the route with the MTB site I'd have found that the decent route we were unwittingly about to try is rated as one of the best in the UK as it drops down from 'Lord Herefords Nob' (yes, yes, I know. Only in the UK'.) for 400m over 3km. The ridgeline is most unlike the UK's other natural rock strata or hills, it stands sweeping up from the south to a sharp edge that runs for Km after Km from north east to south west. Down the predominantly north side is a smooth, steep, run of rocky grass and heather that seamlessly rolls into unbounded grassy meadows and the green fertile valleys of mid Wales. And down that slope we were about to go, oblivious of the wildest of rides to come.

The top section was mainly composed of rough overlapping slabs, which we did our best to avoid by taking the boulder-strewn path to the right. The steep nature of the face forced us to gather speed at a ferocious pace and the momentum carried us bouncing and deflecting over boulders that we had no right or skills to be riding. As I look at the photos of the face now I can still remember that crazy rush as we lost the last two hours of climb in less than 10 minutes of wild riding over some amazing ground. Technical rocky steps, bouldered loose single track, faster smoother rutted track, a hairpin, red soil, open and flowing, a slighter gradient, faster, ever faster, damp earth, grass and red mud, then more single track, and finally head high gorse bushes with random line choices as we were gently left panting and in wonder at a slow water crossing. I'm not entirely sure who was more surprised, the cows or us. But at that precise moment I know who was happiest! The short climb up the other side of the gully opened out into a huge unbroken expanse of grass area, more like the African plains than the tightly choreographed landscape of the British Isles. Suddenly the sky looked huge and we set off again, infinitesimally small, sweaty, grinning fools, with numb legs, we pushed the pedals and they took us on again. But downhill, always downhill, rolling freely over virgin grass towards a clump of trees in the far off distance. 

By far the best descent we rode on the first half of the trip this wouldn't be an easy day out. But for that ride''.it HAS to be worth it! Probably best though that you don't do it as part of a huge 2000km trip, because the next few days are a bit hard'

A brief road section led us north to our lunch stop at a small intersection and bridge called Glasbury. We had chosen this area to return once again to sea level because of the promise of fuel (as we were now starting to think of food). The fine 'PH' symbol stood out as one of the few buildings present in this area and we were by now desperate for some complex carbohydrates. Three memorable things happened that lunchtime. First the 'PH' was closed. That was bad. Second, we discovered a hotel on the other side of the river that was open. That was really good. Finally, when we discovered that it was possibly the only hotel in the universe that didn't serve food'That was mind crushingly bad. So we returned to the bridge and sat watching the locals swim in the river wondering what to do next. If we had to finish the next 40km without food then so be it, it would be hard but doable if we used our emergency supply of two chewy bars, but it would mean stuffing ourselves to near death that night to replace a whole days intake. 

A garage over the road provided an assortment of slightly stale sugar snacks and a few bags of crisps and after a brief break we set off for the second half of our day slightly hungry. The first two Km were another dreamy ride as we followed the riverbed northeast but as with everything else in the region, if you are not following wide river beds you're not riding flat ground!

As I sit here writing this I can remember clearly looking at the map as we sat at the fuel station, my bag of crisps in my hand, wondering exactly how we were going to travel 35km over 1700m of climbing in 4.5 hours when we were already tired and had to navigate some pretty remote terrain. I now know the answer to that question. We weren't! Our ETA of 7:30pm was long past as darkness started to close in at 10pm and we took yet another wrong turn looking for more vague tracks and trails.

It seems odd now that it was so difficult to try and cover such a short distance in 4.5 hours and not manage it. When I look at the map it all seems quite straightforward except that I know we were tired. A quick check of the route profile throws in a few ideas, but I guess it all comes down to the cumulative effects of exhaustion and lack of food. Most certainly the last one. If you have no fuel, prepare to run aerobic, and that equals, SLOW! 

I have included a profile of the afternoon, not as an excuse for our slow progress but to give you an idea of the confused nature of the terrain in the Breacons. 

As we wound up and away from the river a steady grind uphill started on a short steep section. All around us the confused nature of the ground made it really difficult to gauge where our route actually went. We could rarely see any obvious tracks or trails because of the continual overall rise of the route. All we knew for sure was that the huge hill in the distant haze would push us up to nearly 700m before we dropped steeply off ready for a reverse climb the next day. We passed the aptly named Paincastle in a haze of dreams about mashed potato and chicken dinners, the stomach grumbles were upon us. 

Every possible town (i.e. Paincastle) had no shops or open Pubs, and the few roads we rode were deserted. After three hours as we pushed ever upwards onto a moor and I began to wonder if the whole world had died in some kind of Nuclear disaster. Where was everyone! This was the UK. How could we possibly ride for a whole day and find only a single open shop that didn't sell food! Another look at the map now shows a truly remote part of the UK which is cunningly masquerading as populated. There are plenty of small roads and isolated houses but not much else. Especially if you are running on cut down printed maps. In retrospect a wise move would have been to head east to Hay-On-Wye and feed ourselves a decent meal, but retrospect is a fine thing, and anyway, we only had to ride for a few more hours before our B & B and a huge pub meal awaited. Right? 

We rode onward slower and slower until the sun dropped over the horizon and our emergency petzyl LED head torches made their appearance. At this point we hadn't seen our so-called track for sometime and we were somewhat worried. Exhausted as we were some cross words were exchanged and when we caught ourselves we stopped being spanners and turned north to our nearest expected road. It had been a fine few hours riding over some fantastically remote highlands. For me the hardest part had been riding past a small self built house with a wind turbine outside nestled in one of the farthest corners of remoteness we saw. It was clearly the site of a self-sufficient farm and I would have loved to have stopped and met the inhabitants. 'Next time', I told myself, fully aware there wouldn't be one. I guess you can't have everything on a trip like this. We were certainly experiencing some unusual sights, sounds and feelings on this trip, but we were also missing out on many more'but you cant have everything! As we finally dropped fast down a hillside towards the road were delighted to find ourselves only about 2km from the nights B & B. Although we had lost our track we had moved accurately on a compass bearing for a number of hours and had pulled our first navigational 'blinder'. Good result! 

Exhausted we crawled into the B & B beyond hunger and just looking forward to rest and food. The landlady that greeted us was lovely; as was the homemade cake she gave us. It lasted all of about 3 seconds as it fell vertically downwards into my cavernous and empty stomach. By now it was past 10pm so we wasted no time and scrambled downstairs as soon as we could swap clothes to ask directions to the pub. We knew there was one close by because it had been top of our booking criteria for every resting spot. The first response was excellent; it was only 2 minutes away! The second response was devastating. They didn't serve food on Mondays. The landlady announced her intention to go to bed and left us in the sitting room speechless. 

Two words sprang immediately to mind based around 'oh' and 'fuck'. Now we were in deep shit. By the time we had explored our options we realised breakfast was going to have to be offensive, ate everything we could find including the sugar sachets in the tea and coffee tray and collapsed comatosed.

I was woken in the night by a growling deep in my stomach. I was starving! I tried my best to go back to sleep knowing that I desperately needed every drop of HGH I could get to repair my knackered body, but as is always the case, when you HAVE to sleep you rarely can.

Breakfast was as close to heaven as a man can get. I ate until I felt physically sick and by the time we left the house I was confident that the day was going to be OK. At the time I didn't really know much about endurance exercise nutrition and the way the body uses and stores glycogen. I didn't know that just because I was full at breakfast it didn't mean my body had ANY stored energy, but I was about to find out! It's interesting that although Julie ate the same as I did she either a. Didn't make so much of a fuss about it as I did (Surely NOT!!) or b. Wasn't as bothered by the effects so much (My preferred solution'). For me day nine was the low point of the journey, all the demons came to haunt us and although we came out of it OK I can't say I really excelled myself.

The first moves of the day took us out of the farmhouse for 500m and straight onto private land with a big sign on it telling us to bugger off. Julie was all for ignoring it, but after some discussion I persuaded her that we would be pretty pissed off to find to people strolling though our garden in similar circumstances and that we should detour around. This added 5km onto our already long day but still only clocked it at around 65km with 2000m of climbing. 

Once our warm up detour was complete the Welsh hills immediately played their Ace with a nice climb to the summit or Radnor Forest at 650m. From 125m at the farmhouse this wasn't really my idea of fun especially at the gradient we were offered, but we started our slog. By the time we had reached ' way up to the summit I was as knackered as I had been at the end of day eight. My uphill speed was so slow that for the first time since Cornwall and day 1 I seriously wondered if this was going to the be the day that it all ended.

I searched deep inside myself and realised there was no way in the world I was going to stop unless I dropped dead. I knew about keeping going at all costs from long days climbing and slogging around in alpine winters with big rucksacks at stupid altitudes. What it seemed I didn't know about was how to deal with the misery. So I took it out on Julie'Our first and only big blow out of the trip happened half way up the slope from The Bache B&B to the summit of Radnor Forest. It was far from the best way of channelling my misery, and I'm ashamed to say it was pretty much all my doing. 

Julie had set into her grinding plod pace that she seemed able to maintain indefinitely without complaint or concern, (it wasn't fast, but it was unerringly resolute) when I stopped her mid slope on some poor pretext and announced that if we couldn't go any faster than this I didn't think we should carry on past Manchester. Her reaction was predictably upset and suitably happy with her distress I turned to carry on up the slope. By the time I got to the summit I felt doubly awful. I felt a little sick, quite weak, I had stomach cramps, and I had just pushed my misery onto someone else who was probably dealing with enough of her own. Not for the first time I marvelled at how little this trip had to do with cycling for much of the time and how much it was a voyage of personal discovery. I can't say I was particularly impressed with the findings of the voyage so far that day, and to make matters worse shortly after that revelation I bonked again, big time.

There isn't much I can continue to say about cycling in mid Wales. For the most part it's deceivingly remote, the phrase we coined to describe the feeling of riding there was 'here be dragons'. The phrase found at the age of ancient maps when they didn't really have any idea what was over the horizon. I do know that for the rest of the day the sun shone and burned our skins for the ninth consecutive day. The sky stayed a surreal blue that is (for once) perfectly captured in the photographs we stopped and took of the many strange and unlooked for things that we came across. The air was crisp and clean and lacked that dirty cloying feeling you get in cities. I know that I struggled for eight hours not to stop as we passed over 5 more valley systems always grinding up and blasting down dry and dusty tracks as fast as our wheels would carry us. My mood fluctuated wildly from an almost elated sensation to deep misery in random waves that saw me grinning like a fool one minute and almost crying the next. Julie was always nearby, sometimes just ahead sometimes just behind. After a while the hunger went away and I reached a status quo where my moderated pace allowed fat to be converted to movement without deficit, and as long as I didn't exceed that scientifically dictated pace I realised once again that indefinite forward movement was possible if a little disjointed and painful.

I'm not sure how long this could have carried on in reality but when a small village loomed on the maps and Julie said she recognised the name and thought it had a shop I was well and truly shaken from my misery. It might have meant a 10km detour but when needs must'One thought above all others soared to heavenly heights, one thought represented by one word'.SUGAR! What I didn't know then, but I do know now, is that my brain is a fussy bugger. It will only run on glycogen and sugar, none of that fat stuff, oh no. So when the glycogen runs out it's not just the physical side of your performance that will suffer, you need to be prepared for some odd mental results like extreme mood swings and very irrational thoughts'

I can't remember what I bought from the shop, in reality I cant really remember that day very well at all, but I remember the amazing effect the food had in no more than a few minutes. All of sudden I felt shaky and sat outside the shop a bit numb and dazed. Julie looked on and munched on a pie, unperturbed as usual. She checked the maps, turned her head to the sun and closed her eyes in the late afternoon warmth. Basking in the sunshine she looked gorgeous and I wondered for the 50th time that day what in gods name we were both doing there. This was one barking mad holiday!

The climb onto the Kerry Ridgeway was a homecoming for Julie whose parents lived a mere 15km away at the opposite end. I remember only too well that slow steady push up to the summit with numb aching legs, but I also remember the amazing view from the summit of a patchwork landscape of thousands of multicolour fields mingled with woods and rivers. There aren't many things that human beings touch and don't screw up, but I cant imagine many views more beautiful than from the summit of the Kerry Ridgeway in the setting summer sun as its yellow glow reflects off the crops and fallow fields of Shropshire. 

In the best possible tradition of the trip within site of our bed for the night and less than 5km from Julies parents house she got us lost. How we lost the Ridgeway I will never know, it wasn't one of our finest moments, but memories of my 5km circular detour on day two kept my mouth firmly shut and for the first time one look between us said it all. We had crossed Wales in two and a half days in the worst of possible physical conditions. Some of the riding had been spectacular, some mediocre. The weather had tested us in the hottest of conditions. Even providing some serious water concerns at times. We had argued, suffered, starved, been lost, miserable, and usually confused. But we were still together and still going. And what's more as we pulled in to Julie's parents at Bishops Castle I knew with certainly that whatever was coming we would make it to the end. Especially with the ridiculous amounts of stew I was about to eat, because in keeping with the roller coaster ride, after two days of starving, Julies mum was about to attempt homicide by feeding. Bliss!