PTW

Well the weather was fine and 6 riders turned up, which probably means the new 9:00 start is not fully appreciated by some people who enjoy Sunday mornings in bed listening to Steve Wrights Sunday love songs.........

However, Undeterred Spot, Myself, Curtis, Stiker, Little John and wait for it... Andy Evans (Who turned up with helmet light as it was dark when he left Pencoed) all got to the plaza for the 9:00 am start where much fear and dread was instilled in my heart when I looked around and saw a fine array of Carbon.

For the Record, I was on full winter bike complete with mudgards and lead wheels and lumpy tyres..............Curtis was on his....... "Winter Bike"......... which happened to be his TT bike on which he had recorded a 54 earlier in the year........ (And he was talking as though he was looking for sympathy........ yeh, Right)

Anyway off we went at 9:05 (just in case some others were going to turn up late) and we headed east into the headwind to give us the best return journey.

Looking at the riders out, Spot had a glint in his eye and this combined with the prestine piece of carbon under his butt meant we were in for a day of climbing...........and so it turned out.

Having turned left at "Pips Bend" we headed up through Pen Y Bryn before decending Dr Richards hill into Tondu. Left to Coytrahen and the first gradient came and went as we turned right past home farm and then headed over Bettws. Decending into Llangeinor was nice before once again we went left to climb Mini Bwlch..... We did have a short wait on the top for Little John who then went screaming past before decending like a Banshee into Black Mill.

Now for some reason the pace picked up as we headed down the ogmore valley with a monster tail wind all was fine as the PTW train went at around 25 -30 MPH towards Bryncethin....... Neat......... but then we turned left (SMALL GEARS PLEASE.......) to Buarthau.........and finally Brynna.

Now for those that have not ridden this ribbon of tarmac, or to be more precise one and occasionally two ribbons of tarmac in parallel..... the road rises a lot, drops a bit, rises a lot more, drops a bit and keeps this up for what seems like forever. pretty soon, me striker and little john were sounding like miners with pneumoconiosis on oxygen machines and even Andy Evs stopped talking on one of the sections...... (either this or it was the partial deafness brought on by the trance like state i was in trying to follow the wheels).

Just before Brynna there was one section which i slammed it in the 34 - 25 and still only just got up it......... Motivation was provided by the fact that Little John and Striker were just behind me......

Anyway when we got to Brynna Little John turned right and headed for the Cafe and we headed off to Llanharry before following the lanes through llangan, Treoes before enjoying a well earned cuppa at the cafe.

After some banter with Pritch, Stuart and Mark we then headed home via Broadlands, and Kenfig Hill. I got home at 12:45 earning myself many brownie points and sat down to lunch with the family having ridden 58 miles

Port talbot club run by the porthcawl poet.

Sounds good boys. I went for a quick spin up the Black Mountains and blew to pieces!

I haven't ridden a bike all weekend. Rotten luck. I'm still recovering from the effort of having to move 200 slabs on Friday. All I can say is I must have been doing it right, because my legs hurt more than my arms Going to watch Commonwealth road race now, see if I recognise any names.

Well, lots of mentions of Luke Rowe, but we joined the coverage 2 hours in and I didn't see any other Welsh riders. Hope they had a good ride anyway.

I had to fast forward the end of the race. Looked like it was going to be an Aussie victory, and I simply can't watch any more of them