This was my first attempt at bikepacking, I cycled solo along the North Wales coast, from Llandudno area to Gyrn Goch on the Lleyn pensinsula.
Brilliant journey, beautiful mountain views, lots of historical sites (Conwy castle, Penrhyn Castle, Caernarfon castle, celtic and iron age forts, steam railways, religious sites along the old pilgrim route etc)
I chose this area because I regularly see the rivals mountains (Yr Eifl) in the distance from the top of the Great Orme (local headland) on clear days, and decided that I would like to see them up close. It was only when I got there that I realised that it was the same area where I have a lot of family history.
Journey was approximately 75 Km; this is10 km more than it should have been due to taking a couple of wrong routes and attempting a closed cycle path (first 2 barriers were ok, 3rd one was impassable).
I set up camp here and the second day day explored the local area on my bike; the Glyn Llifon estate, Llandwrog village (lovely pub there for a pint and a meal), Dinas Dinlle etc it was quite nice riding around freely without all that additional weight on the bike. I then set off back home on the third day.
This was really a test run to see if I can handle the Traws Eryri route in Summer (after my youngest son finishes A-levels and before he goes to uni). Main lesson were 1) I need to really increase my fitness and lose some weight, 2) I need padded gloves and to fit my bike properly including seat position (just discovered what the ulnar nerve is!), and 3) I'm going to need panniers as a shoulder bag for clothes was particularly uncomfortable.
by gabwyn
4 Comments
That sounds like a lovely trip. I love these shake out trips to get me dreaming of more and, yeah, get those kinks out.
Cycled in North Wales a bit and it is such a beautiful place! Looks like you also passed through the smallest house in Great Britain
Lovely place to ride
I am not very experienced, but also bought an mtb for a go anywhere/commuting/bikepacking bike a few years ago, wanted to add my experience to some of your issues.
For my hand problems I bought an alpkit confucius handlebar, as far as I see it’s still very cheap, ~44 GBP, wrapped some of it in the middle in bar tape for more comfortable hand positions as after ~2 hours riding I always started to feel my hands (I got massive weight pushing down on them).
For my nerve etc issues I use selle smp seats for 10+ years, they have them in bigger sizes and it perfectly lines up with my bones and I don’t have any nerve issue since then and also with those seats you don’t have to use padded cycling trousers either (once you got used to them) – less custom clothes/kit is needed, I actually go out riding in my hiking clothes now, even in hiking button shirts lol.
I also got panniers (have eyes for them on my bike) and they are far better than anything else, you can have the two sidebags, plus a massive space on top of them, nothing beats them.