The Dragon ride revisited was the first of Cycle Cardiff’s rides to be classified as very hard – and rightly so! The promise of hills (or Welsh Mountains) and a forecast of rain didn’t stop seven cyclists setting off at the earlier time of 9.15. We headed out of Cardiff on a familiar route through St Fagans and Welsh St Donats and then on not so familiar roads towards Pencoed, start of the Dragon Ride proper.
A fair few ‘minor’ climbs had been tackled and not insignificant amounts of food had been consumed by the time we reached Blackmill at the foot of the Ogmore Valley and the start of the ‘mountains’. (more…)
Posted 6 August 2008 by Gwenda Owen
Social ride. Meet at 6.30–6.45 on the Bute Park side of the Sophia Gardens footbridge. In lieu of a meeting in August, we’ll be taking a pleasant evening ride across the barrage (weather permitting). Having reached the other side, there’ll be a bit of an uphill into Penarth Town, where we will be arriving at Osho Lounge on Windsor Road for drinks and/or food at roughly 7.30. Obviously, we can’t guarantee the availability of tables, but hopefully it being a Monday should help. Bring lights! There’s no specific plan for getting back, so be prepared to get back under your own steam. The barrage route will be closed. Contact: Nick Canham 029 20222016.
Posted 31 July 2008 by Nick Canham
Sunday 21 July – Ride report. This was Cycle Cardiff’s first opportunity to run an organized ride across the new barrage link. Our Bike Week attempt had to be aborted after the opening was delayed. For those like me with only a sketchy idea of the Bay’s geography, it comes as a surprise to find that the new route is incredibly short. Simply by creating a bridge across the Roath Basin and several hundred metres of new cycle path, we now have an excellent link from Penarth to Cardiff. It has already proven a massive success, and it can’t be long before the opening hours of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. will have to be reconsidered. On this day, we headed right across and up the other side into Penarth where Geoff very generously invited us all into his garden for drinks and nibbles.
Posted 31 July 2008 by Nick Canham
Dragon Ride re-visited. Meet 9.00–9.15 on the Bute Park side of the Sophia Gardens footbridge. For those of you who love hill climbs, we will be riding two of the main hill climbs encountered in this years Dragon Ride with spectacular scenery. From Cardiff we head out to Pencoed via St Fagans and Welsh St Donants to pick up the start of the Dragon ride route in Pencoed. From here we will travel across to Blackmill to start the first big hill climb up to Nant-y-moel and a second climb across to Cymer. From here we loop back to Maesteg, Bridgend, and back to Cardiff. Very Hard: 116 km (72 miles). Contact: Dave Webb 029 20705789 or 07925 323401.
Posted 26 July 2008 by Dave Webb
If there had been a surreal bike tour in the tourist information office to book, I don’t think that I could have ever experienced a better one. Just picture the scene: a beautiful Mediterranean day, a meeting place set between the ancient buildings that house the Catalan Government on one side of the square and the Barcelona City Council on the other. A group of over a dozen female lawyers from London turn up on a hen weekend and ask our guide, Francisco, if he knows where they can get a male stripper for the evening, as he is adjusting their saddles. He smiles and says that probably his brother in the shop will know - I sense that his brother often has the buck passed to him. (more…)
Posted 23 July 2008 by Paul Barrett