Compared to the alternatives of sprinting up and down a bypass for 12 hours, camping and riding through the night in Sweden or hunting out dragons in the mountains of Snowdonia, I think Rob and I definitely took the easy option last Sunday in riding the inaugural 140km Velothon Cymru on closed roads from Cardiff.

I must admit that I was nervous beforehand about what sort of reception the ride would get having heard about some of the locals getting upset about the road closures.  I sympathised with them as it sounded very much as if the organisers had been very lax in not publicising the event locally until very late in the day.  However the event passed mainly without incident.  The start was right in the centre of Cardiff next to the castle.  One positive feature of entering is that the organisers made it very easy for groups to get a common start time.  We seemed to be in a starting pen dominated by cycling clubs and we felt rather overwhelmed being amongst a group of around 25 from Marlow Riders whilst we were also outnumbered by groups from amongst others TVT, Thames Velo and GS Henley.

The first section was along a flat route close by the coast to Newport.  Quite picturesque if you like post-industrial landscape and it passed right by the impressive Transporter Bridge (I must go back and travel on that again now that it’s reopened).  We soon got used to the fast pace on roads without other traffic and after an hour we had covered well over 20 miles without really feeling as if we had broken sweat.  At Newport the route turned up past Celtic Manor where we came across a hold up on a rather narrow lane which we discovered later was due to tacks on the road (at the time we assumed it was just due to the sheer weight of numbers).  This was the only problem we came across though and it was quite ironic that many car drivers were complaining of suffering punctures on the Monday morning!

The first food stop came at around 60km at Usk Rugby Club.  It was a bit chaotic, but we weren’t too bothered about stopping for long.  The first big climb of the day was the famous Tumble at Abergavenny.  Lasting 6km with an average gradient of 10% into the picturesque Brecon Beacons this was a tough but fantastic challenge.  In fact I would say that this was the closest experience I have had in the UK to the sort of climbs you get in the Alps or Pyrennes. 

Of course a long thrilling descent then followed.  Some of the route after this was on dual carriageways – not quite so pretty, but it did mean plenty of room.  I was amused to see a protesting cyclist carrying a big placard (not very aero!).  However, from what I could read his beef seemed to be with freemasons rather than with cyclists!  It was great that the crowd support was still there on these sections.  I was imagining one young girl going into school the following day and when asked what she did at the weekend saying ‘My mummy and I went and sat down in the middle of a dual carriageway and I spent all afternoon banging one of mummy’s saucepans with a big spoon as we watched cyclists going by!’.

We soon reached Caerphilly Castle and then the second big climb up Caerphilly mountain which reached 16%.  After that all that was left was a very quick downhill back into Cardiff.  Generally the road surfaces were very good and better than most of the Chilterns.  In fact the last few kilometres in Cardiff were probably the poorest that we came across.  Overall because of the two steep hills much of the rest was either flat or downhill and as Rob commented, although we ended back where we started it felt like we spent for more time descending than climbing.

So how does it compare with Ride London?  Well we were very lucky with the weather last weekend (in contrast to last year’s London).  I think the Velothon had the better route with a couple of much more challenging hills than London (although noises from local politicians may lead to the route changing next year).  The descents were also much longer in Wales – looking at my Strava there were sections well over a km long where I had no trouble averaging over 30mph down a wide road with no traffic.  Personally I thought it was more scenic (but then for me this was a nostalgic trip around where I grew up, compared to London which I cycle through every day).  The support from the locals was as enthusiastic for each event, but being in a more rural area there are less people around in Wales.  The Velothon was less crowded than London (so I wouldn’t be surprised if they increase the numbers in future years like London is doing).  However London does try and get the faster riders setting off first, while the Velothon seemed to let the slower riders go first – not a great problem, but the groups of fast club riders do need to watch out for the occasional slower rider on a mountain bike or hybrid.  The Velothon does also have the advantage of making it much easier to arrange a common start time for a group.  Of course London does have the distinct advantage of being a lot easier logistically for us, not requiring an overnight stop (although I guess you could head down to Cardiff very early on the Sunday if someone will pick up the numbers on the Saturday).  Hopefully the Velothon won’t clash with the Vätternrundan next year and we can get a bigger group from the club.