{"id":617,"date":"2012-05-07T21:10:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/?p=617"},"modified":"2024-02-01T21:14:01","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T21:14:01","slug":"hereford-to-llandovery-day-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/?p=617","title":{"rendered":"Hereford to Llandovery \u2013 day 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was aware that the weather forecast was for lots more rain, and I wasn\u2019t particularly looking forward to a long train journey in wet cycling gear, so I resolved to set off pretty early. As it happened, I broke all personal bests as I was awake with the dawn chorus, out of bed for 5.30 and on the road at 6.27. The tent was dry, its footprint needs airing, but all in all I was quite pleased with myself. I had mile upon mile of empty road as well \u2013 not that a great deal ever uses these remote Welsh B roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was quite cold, although none of the nights delivered the sort of temperature that was rumoured. I hadn\u2019t brought any warm gloves with me, and on the spur of the moment I had bought a pair of neoprene gardening gloves in a pound shop in Llandovery, just in case I did have to cycle in the cold and wet. My fingers were painful with cold this morning, so I put them on and slowly recovered as I went along. The wind was still north-easterly, so I had a headwind to contend with, but there was not a great deal of height loss to this journey: about 400\u2032 above sea level in Aberedw, about 160\u2032 above in Hereford some 38 miles away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clouds and early morning sun were providing quite a spectacle, and Lord Hereford\u2019s Knob was covered in white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I passed through this village on Friday and I promised it that I would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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and I had to read this road sign two or three times before I realised that it didn\u2019t say what at first I thought it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Wye, at Glasbury, was much clearer than the turbid torrent it had been three days previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I arrived in Hay more quickly than I expected. I had it in my mind that it was 20 miles to Hay and a further 20 to Hereford, but in fact I pulled up outside the Isis tea rooms after only 16 miles, at 8.25 in the morning, intending to take advantage of their all-day breakfast, but they were closed. I suppose an all-day breakfast is one you can\u2019t buy at breakfast time. Fortunately a baker\u2019s shop was open an they were selling filled rolls. I bought a couple, eating one straight away and saving the other for the train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I left Hay I was in England and, after a short while, it started to rain. I stopped near Moccas to put my waterproofs on and from that point I couldn\u2019t really read the Garmin. The route was simplicity itself, though: I arrived in Madley and after that kept to the B road until it joined the A465 and some fairly heavy bank holiday traffic. I crossed the Wye for the last time<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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and then went in search of the station, which was annoyingly quite some distance from the city centre. My train was at the platform and left 5 minutes later, but I found that there was no convenient connection and decided that the Great Malvern tea room was the best place to spend an hour or so. Eventually, a huge old 125 arrived and I thankfully put my bike in the last space in the bike lock-up, although I found afterwards that there were more bikes in the guard\u2019s van proper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ride to Fenchurch Street was unusually pleasant: the mile or so through Hyde Park was followed by traffic free Constitution Hill and The Mall. I arrived home about 12\u00bd hours after I\u2019d set off, feeling generally pretty pleased that I hadn\u2019t abandoned on the first morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was aware that the weather forecast was for lots more rain, and I wasn\u2019t particularly looking forward to a long train journey in wet cycling gear, so I resolved to set off pretty early. As it happened, I broke all personal bests as I was awake with the dawn chorus, out of bed for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camping","category-cycling","category-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}