This was the final day of my tour. I was totally taken by surprise at the change in temperature from the previous day. I had planned to simply ride to Bangor, but the mild and benign conditions at the top of the pass required something more. I would probably have been OK climbing to the summit of Snowdon in those conditions, even in my cycling kit and my extra “emergency” warm clothes (as the summit would have been much more exposed than the valley below it. If I had left before dawn I think I could have done it and still caught my afternoon train. When I stopped my ascent the summit looked very close, but about 2000 feet higher, so being realistic I would have needed about 4 hours extra. In any case I would have climbed into the cloud and probably seen nothing but mist from the top!
The pass of Llanberis is pretty self explanatory – both beautiful and downhill. Industrial exploitation of the land has been everywhere along the tour, but Dinorwig Slate Mine must be the most blatant and visible symbol of it.
I didn’t explore Bangor, but those 2 bridges are historic and worth seeing. Sadly the Britannia Bridge is no longer Stevenson’s daring box structure which served well until damaged by fire in the 1970s. It is now supported by more conventional arches and carries road as well which must take a lot of traffic away from Telford’s slightly earlier bridge which I crossed.
Apologies to Anglesey – I hope to come back and “do” you a bit more justice one day!
This may not be the last “SLOTHO Rides West” video although it IS clearly the end of this story. I’m thinking of producing an epilogue just to give route and accommodation details because I think this route is worthy of consideration by other cyclists planning their summer rides, simply because it uses YHA hostels, which not only involves supporting the YHA but also gives a brilliant tour of northern Britain at a fraction of the accommodation cost involved in some of the other routes.
4 Comments
Brilliant series. Loved it all. Thanks for sharing the journey. Looking forward to more of your adventures.
Looking forward to your next adventure
You came down that miners track nearly as fast as your age and that's fast. Nice to see the Welsh men's girlfriends mowing the grass 🤣. Another great journey over hopefully more to come. 👍
Such a nice end to a wonderful trip, which was very enjoyable to watch. I think the scenery perhaps eclipsed the first SLOTHO trip and your filmmaking and storytelling brought out the best of it. For me, the take-away message is, as Nike say, 'Just do it!' – there are always plenty of reasons to stay home in comfort rather than undertaking a journey such as this, but the decision to go is seldom regretted later. Well done on completing another epic adventure!