For only the second time, the Trail Riding contingent of KingsMCC set off to Wales. The group comprised John, Kevin, Alan and his mate Steve (AKA Gadget ???) who had travelled from Leeds to join us.

The last time we went to Wales we suffered high winds and horizontal rain and got stuck on Mount Berwyn for about 3 hours. Today the weather was high winds and horizontal rain so this time we kept away from the 2,000ft summit of the mountain and rode round the lower slopes. Early into the trip we met a deep pool we had encountered before, Kev refused to go in and rode round it so I shouted for Gadget to go first, and he did... quickly learning that when people who have done something before suggest you go first.............don't.

In the deepest part he fell off, or abandoned ship might be a better description. The good news was the engine had sucked in enough water to lower the level to testicle height.

So, we dragged it out, stood it on it's back wheel, lay it on it's side, took the spark plug out and spun the engine over, John, carefully observing the procedure got a face full of oily water which cheered everybody up! We drained a pint of water out of the air box, and deciding dust wasn't going to be a problem today ditched the filter, drained the carburetor, and towed it for 2 kilometres, then it fired up, as easy as that. Leaving a trail of steam behind us we continued on.

After stopping for a butty break we moved on and came to one of the few techincally difficult sections. Compared with our usual area in Derbyshire the Welsh roads are relatively simple. The difference is that while being fairly easy to ride they go for miles and miles which is great, but very tiring and you do feel very lonely when you have a problem.

In this picture we are tackling a slope which is Welsh slate and is very slippy compared to the Derbyshire Limestone. Kevin has just reached the camera at about half way up, Gadget has just picked his bike up and Alan waits for a clear run.

Coming accross a small village we stopped for refreshments and a change of gloves, Kevin found the dye had run out of his.

We carried on and by now the rain was coming down so hard it was beginning to hurt. At the end of the next trail, which was about 5 kilometres long, we decided to call it a day and rode the short distance back to the cars on tarmac.

We had covered around 50 miles with about half of that off tarmac. (we can't say offroad any more because they ARE roads and too many people think if it hasn't had a layer of tar put on, it can't possibly be a legal highway!)

Wales is certainly worth travelling the extra distance to get to, and we are already talking about our next visit.

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