Snowdonia 360: Wales Bike Trip

Introduction

I heard about a new route in Wales called the Snowdonia 360.

I mentioned the idea of riding it over a weekend to Zac & Bill. We didn't want to take any holiday, so the plan was to leave Friday (after work) and come back Sunday night. This was going to be about a ~1000-mile round trip. (Lol)

Day 1 - Friday

Bill arrived at my house at 5PM so we could get a head start. Bill's bike was suffering an intermittent fuelling issue; prolonged speeds of 60mph+ would result in his bike bogging and losing power. Zac ended up leaving about an hour after us.

Other than using the hard shoulder to let Bill's bike recover a few times, the motorway miles into Wales were easy going.

Zac caught us up as we crossed the Prince of Wales bridge. It was about 7PM by this point.

7PM: Zipless pockets

We made it to Magor Services; it was Mcdonald's time baby!!

I had stopped being a vegetarian (of about 5 years) a few weeks before this trip. Excitedly, I ordered a Big Mac meal because its photo looked great on the menu. Bill, strongly, advised against this, and suggested the "BIG TASTY" but I always remembered Big Macs being great when I was a kid. I stuck to my gut!

As Bill went to pay, he started searching his pockets. Nothing. He searched them again.

"Oh god," I said... "Phone or wallet?"

"Phone." Bill replied.

Bill went back out to the bikes to check he hadn't dropped it. Nothing.

Running with the theme of misfortune, my Big Mac turned up. A real sorry little idiot of a burger. It looked nothing like it did on the screen. It was dark times. We all sat on a bench outside. I gave Bill my phone so could log into his iCloud account and track his phone location on Find My. It was about 100 miles back on the M4.

8PM: Brecon

It was very dark by here. I had said to my Uncle Paul that we would arrive at his place (Tanyresgair Cottages) by about 9PM so he wouldn't have to stay up too late. Time was ticking on and my sat nav calmly displayed we would be there by about 10:15PM. That's not too bad, I thought. I texted Uncle Paul to let him know we'd be a bit later than expected.

I've only traveled through Brecon once before using off-road tracks and trails on the Trans Euro Trail. I've never explored its roads/mountains. I hope to return to Brecon one day and really experience it in full.

11PM: Tanyresgair Cottages

11PM?! The petrol stops and leisurely breaks had taken their toll on the estimated arrival time. Sorry, Uncle Paul!

Paul didn't seem to mind or care at all. We had a cup of tea and spoke about our journey. Both he and Sally (and their dog, Chester) run Tanyresgair Cottages as a BNB - it's an incredible location and fantastic accommodation.

Paul even went through the trouble of setting up an extra bed for us, as the room was suited for two.

"Do you want to try some of my toothpaste?"

?????????

Bill brought a crazy strong toothpaste with him - he seems to relish seeing how his friends react when they try it.

Day 2 - Saturday

After a great night's sleep, Paul gave us a tour around his property.

We packed our bags and loaded our bikes, ready for an awesome day of riding ahead.

Bill's clutch wasn't working when we tried to leave. Paul had other guests arriving that day; he was frantically getting things tidied up and ready for them. Bill didn't pack the correct tools to remove the clutch fluid reservoir. We pinched some of Uncle Paul's allen keys from his garage and continued to linger like a bad smell on his driveway. To make matters worse, Bill didn't have any spare clutch field on him despite knowing this issue might arise - we pinched some of Uncle Paul's clutch fluid too. Sometimes people really take the piss. This is a testament to Uncle Paul's kindness and hospitality - I am forever grateful for him letting us stay and use all his stuff.

Eventually, and probably much to Uncle Paul's relief, we hit the road. We stopped at a nearby Halfords for a spare bottle of clutch fluid.

Bill's new helmet was doing some damage to his temples as it was relatively new; still bedding in.

12PM: Machynlleth

We stopped for a late breakfast in The White Lion pub in Machynlleth. Zac nearly dropped his bike when we turned around to get to the pub's car park. (I can't remember what I ate or drank - I'm writing this ~8 months afterward. Probably a pint and a burger + chips!)

3PM: Barmouth Coastal Roads

These roads around the southwestern edge of Barmouth were fantastic; the view of the coast stayed on our left for miles as the road twisted and turned.

8PM: Anglesey, Sportsman Lodge

We continued to ride north for a couple of hours, into the darkness once again and reached the Sportsman Lodge at about 8PM. I remember the owner greeting us at the door with a ripped t-shirt on. He was talking to us as if he wasn't wearing a ripped t-shirt. There were several cats around the premises too - We wondered if the cats were the culprits for such a ripped shirt?

It seemed the man had just finished fixing something in the bathroom of the room we were supposed to be in. "Let's just see if this works now," he said, as he flushed the toilet. The toilet made such a noise, I wouldn't have been surprised if it took off through the ceiling and we never saw it again. He grunted, "People flush anything down these poor toilets!". We pinky promised we wouldn't be flushing anything untoward. We were a bit hesitant to use the toilet after that. It was like it was an abused stray animal and it was our responsibility to look after it.

Day 3 - Sunday

It was a great night's sleep. The room was on the ground floor, it had 3 single beds and they each served us well! We woke to a lovely sunrise, the ground outside looked wet - it must have rained overnight.

Demons

I peeked my head between the white mesh-fabric curtain and wiped the condensation off the window before opening it. I began recording a video on my phone - just of our general whereabouts. At the bottom of my peripheral vision, there was a cat right there. "Hello?" I said. It got ready to pounce up on me. "Absolutely not" I bolted back and shut the window, must to Bill's disappointment. Bill swapped places with me and encouraged the feral demon to jump up onto the window sill. I'm a bit scared of cats, when I was a kid, my friend had one; it (the cat) was unpredictable, it would always scratch me and latch onto my socks - it hated me. Besides, we saw the state of the owner when we arrived and he owned the place. What would the cats do with us? It turned out to be friendly. Although, afterward, it probably told all his mates that I was the one who shut the window on him.

Breakfast was superb; a full english included in the booking price, wicked! Bill, Zac, and I were conversing when in the corner of my eye, across the room at the window outside was A DIFFERENT CAT. Half of its face was covered by the vertical mullion of the window, so I just saw half of its evil glare looking right at me. They were definitely onto me.

9AM: Heading for Llanberis 🏞

We enjoyed the early morning ride from Anglesey to Llanberis. We ended up at a big lake called Llyn Padarn where we skimmed stones and had a short break before heading to the foot of Snowdon.

11AM: Snowdon

There is a railway that leads from Llanberis to the summit of Snowdon. It would have been great, and preferable, to hike it - we just didn't have the time. We parked our motorbikes in the gravel car park opposite the railway station and bought our tickets. We had some time to scour the gift shop before embarking on the train.

The views from the train were fantastic. It took about 45 minutes each way.

I can't remember why, but the train could only get about 80% to the top. This was no problem really, the views were still great. I would like to summit Snowdon properly (hiking) one day though.

3PM: Riding home

There was no real plan to do anything other than getting home. However, I noticed the route took us very close to a road that I traveled along whilst doing the Trans Euro Trail the year before.

Time was ticking on a bit, but we didn't care much - we knew it was only about 4 hours of riding to get home. Even if we lingered in Wales until 7PM, getting home at 11PM wouldn't be so bad.

We enjoyed some great roads:

Pen y Pass

Blaenau Ffestiniog

My favourite roads were the A470 and the A44

From here, it began getting dark. We crossed Devils bridge and headed along the Elan Valley into Rhayader. There was no one else on the road due to apparent roadworks ahead. Fortunately for us, the digger that blocked the road had conveniently left its arm in a perfect loop to let motorcycles through. As the sun was setting, we rode the rest of the Elan Valley - an experience I will never forget.

At the end and bottom of the valley, was Rhayader. We stopped in the first pub we saw to get replenished before the long slog home. It was nearing 8PM, so we were going to be getting home in the early hours of the morning.

It got very cold on the way home that night. I had my inner liner fitted inside my jacket which helped a little bit. My thick winter gloves were doing their absolute best, but even then I was still getting cold. The final push home is all a bit of a fog to me - I was rather tired. We were stopped by the side of the road near midnight, using our engines to warm our hands up. The police pulled in behind us, wondering why on earth we were out so late. We were wondering the same at that point.

I arrived home at around 1:30AM. Up at 7 for work the next day.

We squeezed a lot into this trip, it felt like we had been away for longer than just a weekend. I far highly rate a trip that isn't rushed over a trip that is. I would like to return to Wales again and experience it without quite a rush.