tour reports » Touring Wales in one day

This is going to be a multi-post thread in at least six separate post.

For some years I’ve been wanting to see how long it would take me to ride 1,000 miles in one go, this past weekend I gave it a go. I didn’t want to ride on motorways (freeways?) and blast out a thousand miles, I can’t think of anything more tedious whilst riding a motorcycle, so avoid them as much as I can in my normal riding, they do my nut in. Instead I decided to use the roads of Wales to give me something to look at and some enjoyable roads to ride whilst turning the odometer over.

Over the past few years I have done a fair number of long distance rides in one day, many over 500 miles, and a couple over 700, so felt I had a good handle on my capabilities, those of my R1200RS and my riding gear. The majority of those long rides were one day trips in Wales, and these big distances and time in the saddle are somewhat dictated by my home location – Yateley near Junction 4a of the M3 (i.e. near London) – which has meant riding 90 miles just to cross in to Wales in the first place (and 90 to get home at the end).

On finishing those rides my satnav (a TomTom 410) has often reported an average speed in excess of 45mph, seeing those averages made wonder how long it would take to travel 1,000 miles with minimal use of motorways. I sat down and started some calculations to see if it was possible to do it in 24 hours.

I knew that at 60mph I can cover 215 miles on a brimmed tankful, meaning I would need to stop at least 5 times and since I wanted a bit of contingency on range, I tried for 200 mile legs, but finding a petrol station at exactly 200miles from the last one isn’t a real world thing, so I worked on anything from 180 to 205 mile legs. It is also worth mentioning that I would allow myself 10 minutes at each stop to eat, drink as well as fuel the bike, with a 40 minute break after 12 hours. Meaning that I had 22 hours and 20 minutes of riding time, so to do 1,000 miles would require an average of 44.1 mph, hmmm, that seemed a tight call, but it wouldn’t be a challenge otherwise.

I did a lot of forward planning of the route, probably spent well over 20 hours over the course of a number of weeks, using the Tyre 2 Navigate route planning software. I decided that rather than have the whole 1,000 miles as one big route, I’d create 5 separate routes, main reason being that on the ride I could see both the distance remaining to the next fuel stop and the, satnav’s continuously recalculating, time of arrival, but as it turned out it having them separate helped with another aspect on the day, I’ll get to that later.

I used my knowledge of the Welsh roads I’d been riding in the past 5 years, I wanted roads that;
I’ve been able to maintain a good pace on,
I’ve been able to overtake other road users on, or doesn’t have traffic,
I could see some of the great scenery Wales has to offer and
where I know where I could get fuel easily and not have to ride too far into a large town or city – traffic lights and 30 limits kill your average speed.

I also checked where there were petrol stations that were open between 22:00 and 07:00, not being on the motorway network this is quite important and had a bigger influence on my route planning than I had first considered.

I had the basic route laid out for over a year now, but haven’t had the opportunity to ride it, then all the factor lined up, my time, the right time of year (maximise day light hours) the weather (minimal rain forecast, in fact none) and it not being school holiday season (holiday traffic).

Having got the inkling on the Monday that the following Saturday looked ideal I spent a few hours looking up on one.network https://one.network/ for any potential road closures / roadworks that might scupper or slow those routes – it’s a useful resource for critical route planning but perhaps not a normal day out ride. I also double/triple checked every waypoint of the 6 routes, to make sure they were correctly positioned, before I loaded them into the satnav.

With everything planned all I had to do was execute it, the following posts are road by road outline of my route on the day with timings, milage, relevant information I feel is pertinent and anything else as best I can remember.

I was working from home on the Friday and physically took it easy, after work I went and got the bike brimmed with fuel, checked tyre pressures and made sure a the odometer trips were zero’d before putting it in back in the garage. I planned on using trip 1 as the rolling total and 2 as the total on each leg. On a side note Trip A on the RS doesn’t reset at midnight, I wasn’t sure of that before I set off, but it did kept track with trip 1 even through midnight, unlike the satnavs ‘today’s trip statistics. I prepped and packed my food for the following day and went to bed early. Woke at just before 03:00 having had a reasonable 6 hours sleep.

I had a cereal breakfast, got kitted up and set off with 03:30 on the bike clock and 03:27 showing on the Sat-Nav, the photos are slightly before this as I had to put the phone away put my gloves on, take a deep breath before pressing the starter.

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First Leg.
The Journey had me headed for the A33 to junction 11 on the M4, west for 16 miles to Newbury, the A34 to drop on to the A4 for Marlborough and Chippenham (my preferred road for transiting west to Wales), then back on to the M4 again at junc. 18 (A46) to junc. 23 and the M48 motorway back to Chepstow, for a total of 50 motorway miles that morning.

Chepstow to Monmouth on the B4293 (a great road Wessie put me onto a few years back). The sun had come up somewhere on the A4 so I had bright sun shining over my shoulder lighting the road surface, there were pocket of mist in low lying valleys and the approach to Monmouth was surreal. I was feeling good, there was almost nothing else on the roads and I knew I was setting a very high average speed to this point. I was able to continue this up the A40 to Ross-on-Wye, taking a sharp left onto the A49 before another left onto the B4521, another superb riding road that got me to Abergavenny. A465 northeast towards Hereford for the first fuel stop at a 24 petrol hour station.

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Leg one: 183 miles in 3hrs 10mins, an average of nearly 58mph, I consumed a banana, a hardboiled egg and a good portion of water, the bike 16.73 litres (49mpg, UK gallons). I couldn’t wish for a better start and relaxed into the next leg.

I think it is worth noting now that I use a Shoei Neotec II, flip front helmet, so I don’t have to take my helmet off to eat, unless I’m feeling some sort of discomfort, which I rarely do..
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Second leg.

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West on the A438 through Three Cocks (makes me smile every time), and it becomes the A470 until I picked up the A40 near Brecon, still west bound, those are nice roads but not as fun as the A40 to Sennybridge and Llandovery section, enjoyed that part. At this point I turned back north east on the A483 to Beulah, another great road. The B4358 goes to Newbridge and then continues north east to near Crossgates, I’m sure I have ridden it before but don’t recall when, I will however return to it one day, a great road. I’m now on the A483 Crossgates to Newtown, this has to be one of my favourite stretches of tarmac in the UK, 22 miles of (fast) flowing bends, love it, love it, love it.

Newtown is my planned second stop but not yet, first I’ve planned to head out on a loop to Machynlleth on the A470, Aberystwyth on the A487 and then A44 and A470 back to Newtown. Somewhere after Furnace on the A487, I encounter a stationary queue of cars that disappears around a bend. Solid white line and narrow, so I can’t queue jump. I put it down to road works and temporary traffic lights, I was willing to wait feeling I was ahead of schedule because of the previously empty roads. Something else I’d come into the adventure knowing I must do was to “not get wound up and stressed by hold ups”, so I stayed calm. After a nearly two minutes it occurs to me that nothing has come through from the other direction, this feels like something more than traffic waiting for road works. And here is where I think having the legs split out on the satnav, and a calm head, helped.

I took a look at the leg in the satnav overview map and realised I was almost at the furthest point on the loop away from Newtown, if I turned around and headed back I wouldn’t lose much distance, and certainly wouldn’t be losing time as I was sat stationary. I deleted the next couple waypoints, leaving just the petrol station at Newtown and the satnav reported a distance of 10 miles less, fine I can pick that up at the end of the day, better to be riding now, so did a U turn and headed back the way I’d come. If the whole route had been loaded in the satnav this exercise would have been a lot harder to achieve, as we will discover my route crosses itself a number of times, so which way points should I delete? Deleting waypoints causes the satav to recalculate the whole of the remaining route, which can take a significant time for lots of waypoints, before letting you interact with it again.
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As I rode back I recalled a tiny road from Machynlleth to Llanidloes over the top of a few hills that I’d ridden just twice before, whilst single track it gives stunning views, it hasn’t got a number but goes through Dylife before joining the B4518 past the Clywedog Reservoir and dropping you out on the A470. I did push it on that single track road more so than if I was riding normally, I only had to come to a near stop twice for the road crossing sheep, no traffic helped a lot, but did find a few seconds on the highest point to look back over my shoulder towards, and say good morning to, the stunning mountain ranges of Snowdonia lit brightly by the morning sun. As it was I covered just 5 miles less than I intended when I arrived in Newtown.

Leg two: covered 191 miles, total 375 miles in 6 hours, 16.9 litres for the bike (51mpg), another banana, boiled egg and a hand full of pitted dates for me.
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Third Leg.
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Started by heading towards Welshpool on the A483, there is now significantly more traffic on the roads, so I whilst I’m averaging a slower speed it is still feels higher than 45mph. The A458 takes me west, there are a few traffic lights due to road works on this stretch and, where possible, I do that rather rude thing and slide to the head of the queue and tuck in front of the first car, don’t normally do this but today, I’m willing to annoy the car driver, but hey I’m not actually holding them up more than a second or two, if that. I cross into Snowdonia National Park.

At Mallwyd I take the A470 toward Dolgellau, then the A494 north to Bala, A4212 west to Trawsfynydd. Possibly the first time I’ve ever been in Snowdonia when there is no rain, no low cloud, or indeed no cloud or mist at all, what a treat, vivid greens in the plants, hard sharp greys in the rocks and bright blue sky, a gem of a day.

Keeping north on the A470 and A487 to pick up another ‘indulgent’ road of the day. The B4410 to Garreg and then the A4085 north to Nantmor, I say indulgent as it is a tight, twisty, narrow road probably not good for a high average, but I love riding it, you feel like you are in close and personal to the rocks, trees, dry stone walled fields and rivers, my kind of place. As it is a complete lack of traffic and dry roads enabled me to keep up a good lick. This is followed by a section I was in two minds about when planning.

The A498 north, past Snowdon, where the tourist traffic wasn’t as heavy as feared, so easy to keep the speed up. This stretch of road is stunning scenery but usually rammed with car and campervans because… it is stunning scenery. I landed on the A5 and headed west over into Anglesey, another risk and whilst the traffic was heavy and queuing to cross the Menai straights, it all co-operated and let me slip up through the middle so no hold up.

On Anglesey I did some random back roads and took a couple of unplanned roads between waypoints which added an extra couple miles, eventually got on the A5025 near Cemaes and headed south west towards the A55. As I did and because of the position of the sun in the sky the Snowdonia mountain ranges was a dusty mirage on the horizon under a milky blue sky, even if I had stopped I couldn’t have captured it on camera, it was (and I don’t use this word lightly) epic.

I rolled into Bangor for my 40 minute break. I decide to have a burger, chips and a coffee at McDonalds, not for any reason than the pure convenience. I stood outside eating, helmet and jacket off and took stock. Physically I felt better than I expected, a little soreness in my wrists, but only when I squeezed the break or clutch. I have developed ‘bike exercises’ whilst riding for some years now. Stretching legs out 10 times each leg (when corners permit), standing on the pegs and stretching and so on, the only problem I have is remembering to do it before my muscles start complaining. I had been pretty good at doing them on this trip though, even started early on whilst on the M4 and A4. Mentally I was more than happy, I felt positive and was prepared for the next stage which I expected to be the worse for traffic, I was still ahead of schedule, and was doing well with the don’t get stressed if you do get held up. After the burger I got kitted up again and headed for bike fuel

Leg three: covered: 185 miles, 15.49 litres, 54mpg for that leg, a total of 560 total time so far 11.5 hours, average speed for the day now 48mph.
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Fourth Leg.
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Back into Snowdonia national park on the A4085 to Beddgelert nice road, skimming between dry stone walls. Then a reverse the A4085 Nantmor to Garreg and B4410 to Rhyd road. Then up the pace again on the A470 southbound, fast road, have often seen speed mobile cameras on this road but not today, even so was very attentive. At The Cross Foxes took the A487, ‘the Mach loop’ road, the first half is spectacular as you ride up into the head of the valley then hug the edge of cliff side as it drops down the other side, the second half has a series of medium tight bends that, if the traffic is low and the weather is dry, I love, today I’m lucky on both counts and put some wear on the edges of the tyres.

At Machynlleth I’ve planned to use the A487 to Aberystwyth, as I’d tried earlier in the day. I’m not sure if the hold up will still be there but I can always U turn and head for Newtown like I did in the morning. As it was there was no hold up and no sign of what might have caused it. Anyhow, near Aberystwyth I cut inland (east) on the A44. Whilst Aberystwyth is my planned fourth stop I have a 120 mile loop to complete first. It turns out the A44 has become not such a good road to keep your average speed up on, great road neutered by 30, 40 and 50 limits where it use to be 60, hmm perhaps the hold up this morning did me a favour.

As I need to return to Aberystwyth on the A44 in a couple hours the mind games start. I had to remind myself that I was approaching this challenge to see how long it would take to ride a thousand miles, yes an element was to see if it could be done under 24 hours but that wasn’t the ultimate goal. A subtle difference but one that was important for me to acknowledge that way in my head. I have come to realise about myself, when riding, that I can get target fixated; got to get past that car no matter what, got to get there in under an hour, got to cover that distance and it all has a negative impact on me. If I’d set out “having” to do it in under 24 hours, I knew I could get myself into problems whilst riding, I’d become blinkered, making me reckless or dangerous to achieve that target, I trying to learn not stress if something outside of my control gets in the way of the target.

So it was on the A44 I had to remind myself of that, pushing above the 30 limit was NOT the way to do this. Crossing a solid white line to get pass the slow moving car was not an option, remind myself that the planning said it was possible to go sub-24hours but equally taking longer wasn’t failure, remind myself to ride the now and here, ride the conditions and not to fixate on some self-imposed target. And that was the hardest thing I did on this day, pulling back, I’m not saying I stuck religiously to ever speed limit, I didn’t, but I removed my red mist and the dangers that it can hide.

I was soon on the A470 heading to Newtown again, and back on that favourite stretch of UK road again, the A483 back towards Crossgate, and just like the morning there was no traffic, a truly sublime experience, flowing from one bend to the next feeling the tarmac push back through the tyres, feeing the grip (I felt I’d given the tyres time to warm up by now) and carving those sweeping bends, glorious, love it, love it, love it. At Crossgates, turned east on the A44 for about 7 miles, through those exciting series of uphill bends (those who know, will know), before head south west on the, seemingly little know, A481 to Builth Wells another cracking road. At Builth I turned north on the fun A470, which takes me through Rhayader and further north and back to the A44 for Aberystwyth.

There is some great scenery on this section of the A44, that’s about as far as I can be positive about it, today it was my nemesis, I began to feel heat of the day getting to me (bike had been reading 25C for the past couple hours), and I was feeling uncomfortable, mainly hot and sweaty. I spent long periods of time stood on the pegs trying to get the air to flow through the air vents on the front thighs of my riding trousers, to get some air to circulate around my, to be frank, sweaty butt cheeks.

Eventually I arrived in Aberystwyth as it had one of those rare 24hrs petrol stations, the planning had said I’d be here well after 22:00. It was a good sign that it was ten past seven. I ate another egg, another banana, more dates and a muesli bar. My bottom was quite uncomfortable, not from sitting exactly, my skin was reacting to being hot and damp (from sweat), my wrist were sore as well, so I took a couple paracetamol and a couple Ibuprofen.

Leg Four: 206 miles, 16.3 litres, 57mpg, total miles 766. With this leg’s average being 48mph it goes to show me that being stressed and potentially dangerous on the A44 was indeed not worth it, I still managed an amazing pace despite sticking close to the A44’s lower limits, lesson learned.
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Fifth leg.
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A leg on which I had another couple three lessons to learn. If you try anything like this, don’t travel westerly in the evening when the sun is low in the sky. Sounds bloody obvious doesn’t it, but I hadn’t even given it a thought until I rolled out of Aberystwyth towards the south west, on the A487, and was constantly blinded. There was the potential for at least a half dozen overtakes as I followed that coast road but I couldn’t take them as I had no idea where the road went or if there was any on coming traffic. I do have a drop down sun visor in my crash helmet but that didn’t help, sun still blinding with it down just less heat on my face, and I got fed up sliding it up every time I went into the shade of trees or buildings, when it was too dark.

I love sunsets, but the sun was still some distance from the horizon and still burning hot, I had to squint a lot and the first signs of a headache kicked in despite the medication I’d recently taken. The road didn’t make me happy either, on exiting a village I’d reach the national limit sign accelerate and click into 6th and set the cruise and (it felt like) 400 yards later I’d be braking for the 40 limit that precedes the 30 limit of the next village, and repeat. No flow to the ride this evening for me.

At Fishguard I eventually I get to turn more southerly onto the A40, enough that the sun is no longer in my eyes. Or so I thought, at Haverford West I turn east, still on the A40, soon after, as I crest a rise, the angles line up perfectly and I get arc light burns on my retina from the sun in both rear view mirrors, it takes a couple of minutes for the sun spots to clear, so I’m still slower than I could be. I don’t remember much else about this section other than I won’t be planning to ride it again anytime soon. My ass cheeks are getting worse and my wrist now have a dull ache if on the bars and unlike to other roads of the day there’s no involvement to take my mind off these. Eventually, or so it feels, I get close to western edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park.

Something I’d read about doing these long rides was to try and take wider bigger roads during the night time, not the tight and twisty stuff, made sense, so I’d kept out of the Brecons, I also rode a road I’d travelled that morning the A483 Llandovery to Beulah, not that it made any difference, I didn’t remember any of it from the morning, my speed was still above 45 but slower than the morning by some way. I was still travelling with enough pace to get a visor absolutely plastered with insects though.

Whilst I made sure I’d been cleaning off the flies and bugs from my visor at each stop, I can also do it reasonable well whilst on the move and have developed this technique over the past few years. I have on the outside of my tank bag a pump spray bottle filled with (only) water and in the small (open) rear pocket of my tank bag a micro fibre cloth. I have found that whilst riding I can duck my head behind the screen (looking forward the whole time), with my left hand pump the bottle three or four time, the water mists very effectively and covers the visor like rain, I sit up, retrieve the cloth (left hand) and wipe the visor clean, tuck cloth back in the pocket, all without taking my eyes off the road. I change the microfibre cloth at each stop if required, and it certainly was on this trip.

Approaching Beulah I’d executed this technique for the nth time that day, but it didn’t improve the situation at all, the detritus was so thick it just smeared and made any on-coming lights star and blur forward vision. So just outside Beulah I stopped in a layby and cleaned the visor with the water and clean cloth, took the opportunity to eat another banana, stretch my wrists and legs, change from my summer riding gloves, which I’d had on since setting out but were now beginning to leave my hands chilly, to a warm set.

Once underway again I continued on the A483 to Builth Wells and the A470 for another giggle at Three Cocks, and the A438 back to Hereford, it was dark there was nothing to see, I was getting bored if I’m honest, even though I had my full concentration on the road head. It was becoming a chore. Time to kick in the music. I have the integrated Senna comms in my Neotec and have it linked to an old phone (kept powered by an aux supply in the tank bag) on which I’ve a huge playlist. I’d already listened to it a few time during the day (on the motorways and dual carriageways) so I gave it a go. It helped. I have no idea when I stopped consciously listening to it but when I stopped in Hereford I realised it was still playing but I hadn’t taken any notice. The other thing I do when listening to music is mute the satnav’s verbal instructions – not that I have them on that much anyway but I do when it’s dark on unfamiliar roads, as that way I have eyes on the road rather than having to glance at the satnav.

Leg five: 192 miles 15.71 litres (55mpg) total mileage 958, this leg average speed 47mph.
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Sixth Leg.
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Fueling in Hereford and looking at the numbers I knew I was going to get to 1,000 miles in less than 24 hours provided there were no serious incidents. I ate my last boiled egg, good job I like them, and had some more sweet dates. I exited the petrol station and promptly took a wrong turn, no worry, that’s what the satnav is for, took a glance at it, took a few residential street and I’m back on track. This should have been the second warning I ought to have heeded, a warning that I’d let my guard down I wasn’t alert as I should be, the first was when I yawned for the first time in the entire journey as I filled up. I guess the realisation that I was going to get to a thousand miles had me thinking I’d already done it.

My planned route had me leave Hereford south on the A49 then take the on the A466 to Monmouth, but I totally missed the visual satnav instructions, and whilst I wasn’t listening to music the verbal instructions were still muted, I’d unconsciously been following signs instead. So when I eventually looked at the satnav screen I was unaware that that I’d missed a bunch of potential turnings to my waypoint on the A466. I was now at the bottom of the A4137 about to join the A40 towards Monmouth. If I’d of kept on following my instincts and the road signs I’d of been fine, but I reverted to following the satnav route, which had me spearing off down some very narrow lanes strewn with loose gravel, pot holes and grass up the centre of the road.

Very unpleasant at this time in the journey and it had me riding with my eyes on stalks, not blinking. I was concentrating so hard on the road it didn’t occur to me that this was obviously not the route I’d planned, at least not until I noticed the moon for the second time that night. When I’d left Hereford it had been in front and to right of me, now it was to my left and at time behind my left shoulder. Eventually the warning got through to the conscious part of my brain, I slowed down and thought about this, it took a few seconds, but finally it clicked, I was going the wrong way. So I did something alien, but becoming less so, I stopped and took stock.

Overview on the map showed I was heading back north to the way point at the top of the A466. I started to get annoyed with myself, but again, stopped and told myself, all I need to do is cover the distance, I don’t have to do the exact route, it’s dark there nothing to see, enjoy the fact that I can delete the waypoint and continue from where I am to Monmouth. So I found myself joining the A466 in a southerly direction and rolling into Monmouth not much longer after that.

From Monmouth I took Wessie’s B4293 to Chepstow, it was a good call, I had to concentrate very hard to ride it swiftly in the dark, nowhere near as fast as in daylight, but being a fun road it pulls full focus back to riding the road in front. At Chepstow I drop on to the M48 east bound. So it was purely by luck not planning the 1,000 miles appeared on trip 1 as I crossed the Severn Bridge, the clock said 00:21. So that was pretty much 21 hours for the thousand miles. Couldn’t stop for a photo being a motorway.

The last 40 odd miles from Hereford had taken me just over an hour and was the slowest of my day at a paltry (ha-ha) 41mph average. I was able to do that (simple) calculation in my head as I exited the bridge, and looking back at that last hour I spotted my problem, and said out loud “get across the finish line before you celebrate”. And with that thought in mind I checked the satnav, it said I still had 100 miles to get home, back along the A4, reversing the route I came into Wales on.

I decided however that, having done a thousand miles and less than 55 of those on the motorway, that the sensible thing was now to stick on the M4 back to junction 11 and get home. So music on, feet on the pillion pegs, arse up against the front of the pillion seat, helmet chin bar on the tank bag, set the cruise control and get home, where I arrived 92 miles later at 01:49 according to the bike.


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Leg six: 134 miles 11.87 litres (51mpg) total milage 1092, average speed 53 mph.

So the time to cover 1000 miles was 21 hours, an average of 47.61mph.

The overall totals
1092.8 miles
22.5 hours
48.56 mph average
93.01 litres (three tanks of E5 and three of E10)
53.30 mpg

What surprised me the most was the average fuel consumption, that isn’t using the bike’s onboard display, that is using the actual fuel consumed and the milage covered, the trip meters weren’t far off the planning software’s milage numbers – where I followed the actual planned routes – there was maybe a three or four miles difference (which on a 200 mile run is at most a 2% error, which still gives over 52mpg). As I’ve thought about this it begins to make sense. What kills fuel consumption is braking, stopping and the accelerating back up to speed; maintaining momentum is key to fuel consumption and, not inconsequentially, to keeping a high average speed too.

Would I do it again? Maybe, I wouldn’t say no. I will most definitely be do long day rides into Wales again, without doubt, stunning scenery and I’d say the best collection of riding roads in the UK to go with it.

And a last photo (later on Sunday) of the carnage.
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Riding over 1000 miles within 24 hours would qualify you for an Iron Butt Association award.

I forgot to add this picture, all the legs over laid on each other, as mentioned I covered a number of roads twice :-)

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AND I've realise I've made mistake in typing the Leg 2 calculations, it wasn't 6 hours to do 375 it was 7 hours, :-)

Great write up Jason, and an impressive feat. The road from Crossgates to Newtown is one of my favourites too, and many a biker's fave. I agree you cannot beat Wales for riding. I was also on a day trip to Wales last Saturday, I did a ride out to Aberystwyth for some fish and chips, and covered some of the roads you took. It was my first long ride on my new to me RS, but I only did 260 miles!! That's at the top end of what ever I plan to do in a day unless I have a long schlep on a motorway to get somewhere!

Congratulations Jason, 1092.8 miles in 22.5 hours is an amazing achievement! That took a lot of planning and self discipline.
Thank you for writing the account for us, some great tips in there and a great read.
I've never toured on my bike in Wales, been over N England, Scotland, a lot of Western Europe but never Wales, you have inspired me to add it to my list.
Cracking job!

Zitat von wessie im Beitrag #11

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glad you like the road "over the top" (of the Wye Valley) and yes, coming into Monmouth on that road presents you with two fabulous views. One across the Usk Valley to the Brecon Beacons before Trellech and then the view across where the 3 river valleys (Trothy, Monnow and Wye) meet, over to Monmouth town and the Doward hill.

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Zitat von wessie im Beitrag #11

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You are a bloody idiot though, riding 1000 miles in a day.

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Not ridden the B4293, have done the A466 along the river, so that would make a good loop by the sounds of it.
By the way Jason, you should drop one of the bike mags a line, such as Ride, they might be interested in telling your story.

Zitat von wessie im Beitrag #14

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day ride?

the loop will take an hour as it is just over 30 miles https://goo.gl/maps/dUodE9F4xJYireQr5

let me know if you want some more loops to add to that one, heading west over to the Brecon Beacons or east into Gloucestershire.

the chip shop in Monmouth on my route is pretty decent

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