Picking up the Saturday story 2 weeks late as i needed that 2 week window to know how the events of that day would fully pan out….. but more of that later!
Slight hangovers for most as we got out of our bunks after a pretty good sleep…thankfully I pack good wax earplugs so I am oblivious to the snoring of my room mates.
Down stairs and there are already the usual reprobates sitting outside letting the sun warm them up like reptiles ;) as they down coffee and fags to kickstart their brains. Then the bunk house owners bring in the trays of ready prepped food for us to assemble any version of a full English (Welsh?) brekkie we so desire…. Yum yum
So it’s Saturday morning and although it looks like we had a rain shower in the night, it is now sunny out and we were looking at another scorcher of a day.
As usual, we split into 2 groups, the “progressive” group and the more “relaxed” group. Kev was going to take the relaxed ride north back up towards Bala, where they might meet up with Gabi, Victor and Emily who had made a decision on Saturday morning to come and join us.
My group of reprobates was made up of Tony, Pete, Budd, Mick & Lindsay. I have ridden with them all before and know they are good riders, so I know this group should flow well (unlike the year when Rossi joined us on his B12).
I had planned a variation of last years route, but because I needed to be back home Saturday evening (to make sure I caught an early morning flight to Zante for our family holiday) I wasnt going to lead the whole route. I left the bunkhouse with all my kit on the bike and was going to head east after about 180 miles letting Pete take over the lead for the last 60 or 70 miles.
We set off on the fast & flowing A44 from Rhayader towards Aberystwyth, but it now has huge sections that are marked as 50 limits :0…… so that was already spiking the risk assessment. It’s the weekend, its sunny and the Welsh are trying to reduce the speed and fun on the roads ….. a recipe for speed traps for sure.
Fortunately no white vans on the roadside and progress was achieved. A quick fill up and its off round the Devils bridge loop into Aberystwyth for more great roads and fantastic scenery.
We then do an out & back over the Black mountains on the A4069 heading south from Llangadog down towards Brynamman. It’s a cracking bit of road winding up and over open moorland, but like the Cat&Fiddle pass they have decided to spoil any fun and for the last couple of years it is marked as a 40 limit, but i have never seen any enforcement.
What was new this year is that they have fitted some average speed cameras, I think I counted 4……..but that count was after we turned round to come back and stopped for an ice cream at the top. It was then I realised that on the first pass through, I hadnt spotted the first of the ave speed camera poles (in my defence they are pretty small, and I was too busy paying attention to the sheep and cars), so the question now is, how much over a 40 average did I manage to do in that 1st section ??
I suspect i could have been 50% above, so now I am really really annoyed with myself for not paying enough attention and being such a Tw@t, and i think some of the other lads who were following are also not too sure that they weren’t the wrong side of 40 either.
So as we went over towards our lunch stop in Llandovery, I am shouting at myself in my helmet and riding like Mrs Daisy. By the time we stop for lunch I am still in a grumpy mood at the thoughts of waiting for that NIP letter, so I only have a mug of tea and steal one of Pete’s fags to console myself.
The rest of the ride starts to cheer me up as we go from Brecon up towards Builth on a great B road, then through Hundred House on the A481….. but every so often i remember the shadow of the NIP, and get grumpy again.
At the end of the A481 we hit the A44, and this is where I will checkout, so I hand over to Pete here and he will have to fill in the blanks on what they did next.
For me I was just going to take the most direct route and follow the A44 all the way to Worcester, then the A422 back to my house.
The trip home Was going well and there wasn’t too much traffic, so I got a good run through some of the twisty sections, untill about a mile the other side of the little village of Broadwas where I hit a que of stationary cars.
I filtered to the front of the Q, but it is properly closed with Fire engines, ambulances and police cars all over the road and the firemen hosing down the burnt out remains of a motorbike. :0. I killed my engine and talked to the couple in a convertible car at the front of the que, and they said that when they got here the bike was crashed and on fire, but there was no sign of the rider….infact the fire crews were going through the fields and hedges with thermal imaging equipment to try and find the rider!!!
![IMG_4572.jpeg (2.75 MiB) Viewed 1411 times Road blocked](./download/file.php?id=3771&t=1&sid=8ca0da50dc40d6b1d2bfb0397ce0eba1)
- Road blocked
The police came and spoke to us to see if we had seen anything and also to advise us that the road would be closed for over an hour, so we would be better to try and find an alternative route home…….. bugger.
Its a bit out in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t many obvious alternatives, so I headed back the way I came to see if I could find any roads heading off to the right (north).
I had spotted about 10 bikers in a lay-by when i first drove towards Broadwas, and now on my way back, they were still there, but i just wanted to get home so I waved and carried on, but it did occur to me that perhaps they had something to do with the burning bike.
I turned north off the main road and was now on single track C roads, then when i thought i had gone far enough north, I started to head east in the hope that i would get to Worcester…. Which i eventually managed, so i was back on track to get home.
About 10 miles from home there are some roadworks and when i was stopped at the red light a blue zx9r pulled up beside me with an Indian rider. I asked him if he got caught up with the bike accident / road closure, and he said that it was his mates bike that had crashed and burned, but that his mate was OK and had left on the back of one of the others…….. no wonder the firemen couldn’t find the rider! And yes he was one of the group of bikes in the lay-by, they were stopped working out what to do!!
By this time the lights had gone green so I couldn’t get any more information about why they left the scene, but was relieved that the rider was OK, as I had assumed the worst when I saw the fire crews searching the hedgerows….. that put my potential speeding ticket into perspective!
Sunday morning it was off to the airport for a week in Zante, but I was dreading getting home and finding the letter notifying me of a speeding prosecution……..wow, when I got home there wasnt one ….. but I still had the 2nd week to go, so I wasn’t in the clear yet.
The good news is it’s now been 2 1/2 weeks and still no letter, so I think that means we all got lucky.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
Thank Feck!
Sorry not so many pictures from today, but I will let the others post up the view from the black mountains ice cream stop.
Till next year…. Thanks to Kev and team for a great event.