08 June 2018 – The Brailsford Way

We grabbed the chance of a wee extra holiday in Anglesey this month, giving us a chance to cycle somewhere new to us. The Welsh mountains are well known as great cycling territory, and on Googling possible routes, came across the Brailsford Way. This was launched in 2016, named after Dave Brailsford of Team Sky fame, bringing together some of the best bits of Welsh mountain road that he cycled in his youth.

There is a medium and big version of the route, but we chose the medium; at 50 miles and over 3000ft of climbing, that would be plenty for us!

Unfortunately, the official link to the GPS coordinates of the route wasn’t working, but I managed to find an unofficial version of the ride online and loaded that into my Garmin instead. Then we headed for Caernarfon Castle for the start of the ride.

Caernarfon Castle

It was a beautifully sunny, warm and still day as we set off from the castle car park. A footbridge led off to our left across the Afon Seiont river, which might have made for a cheeky shortcut if bikes had been allowed, but instead, we made a circuit of the castle and followed the Brailsford Way route signs out of town, ignoring the inviting-looking cycle path.

Pretty soon we arrived at a roundabout with the A487 road. We joined it briefly then turned right onto a quiet back road on the other side of the river from where we started. After a while, we reached the far side of the footbridge and had a final look at the castle before carrying on along the coastline.

The road here was flat, with great views over to Anglesey on our right, and Snowdonia looking hazy in the distance on our left. It was a nice, easy start to the day, so we just pottered along, enjoying the warmth of the day, until after a few miles the road turned inland.

We continued to follow the Brailsford Way markers until my Garmin beeped at me, saying we were off course. Was the GPS route wrong, or had someone fiddled with the way marker? I decided to stick with the route already on my Garmin, as it would save me from being hassled about being off-course. That introduced us to some undulations until we reached the A487 again. There was no Brailsford Way marker there, so it was clear that my Garmin route was wrong. Rather than double back, we continued to follow the wrong route, which after a few miles brought us to a town called Groeslon.

From there, we were relieved to see the Brailsford Way markers again, although we were a little disappointed when we were directed onto the A487 once more. That was just for half a mile though, after which we took a more minor road to Penygroes. The traffic had thinned out a lot by that time, and on leaving the village, we could see the mountains ahead much more clearly, despite it turning cloudy.

Snowdonia

The route led us into a flat, wide valley, with a body of water named Llyn Nantlle Uchaf to our right. We stopped there, right at the entrance to Snowdonia National Park, to admire the view of the lake and mountains beyond, including Snowdon itself, whose peak was the only one actually obscured by cloud.

Carrying on through Nantlle, we came across a van that was putting out “Warning Cyclists” signs for a cycle event due to happen soon. We leapfrogged them several times as we made our way along the road, until we were slowed by a steep climb and we saw them no more.

We were now well into the hills, with steep-sided valleys and rugged, rocky hillsides. Once at the top of the first real climb, we realised we had been going for long enough to have earned a stop, so we decided to have a break at the next cafe.

At the bottom of the descent that followed, we turned sharp right, to find ourselves in the village of Rhyd-Ddu, outside the Cwellyn Arms. Not a cafe exactly, but we took a look inside, and yes, they could do us a pot of tea and some scones. That was ideal! The scones were lovely and buttery, and came with clotted cream and strawberry jam. What a treat!

When we headed off again and found a tea room about 50 yards up the road, we weren’t in the least disappointed, as they would have done well to better the Cwellyn’s delicious scones.

Beddgelert

After a short while, we got into a long and fast descent that took us all the way to Beddgelert. This looked like a delightful little town, but we were just passing through and only stopped briefly to admire the charming bridge and the stream and the unusual black butterflies.

One other notable thing about Beddgelert is that the Brailsford Way diverges here, with the big route going right over the bridge towards Blaenau Ffestiniog, while the 50 mile route runs left for a shorter and easier option.

Our option did seem easy enough at that point, as the road ran pretty flat for a number of miles, passing a couple of lakes. After the second one (Llyn Dinas) however, we could see the road begin to rise. More alarmingly, we could see the road further ahead rise incredibly steeply. It took a while before we realised that the steep road was actually a minor road running from the bottom of the valley, while ours made a more steady climb. It was the biggest climb of the day, but the gradient was kind enough to allow us to make a gradual ascent without too much huffing and puffing.

At the top, I reached a junction where I paused a minue or two for Colette to catch up. That was the point where the medium and big routes meet again, then continue uphill for another mile or so to Pen-Y-Pass. Once we reached Pen-Y-Pass, we went into the cafe attached to the youth hostel there to ask about lunch. However, it was too early in the season for them to offer lunch (must be a short season!). That wasn’t as bad as it seemed, as there were lots of lunch options in Llanberis at the bottom of the descent that followed.

And what a descent it was! I enjoyed it a lot, but took care on the blind corners, as I didn’t know how twisty they were, and what might be lurking beyond. Like sheep, for example. Six of them decided to hop over a wall into my path, making me brake sharply before they hopped over the wall on the other side. After that, I was content to glide down the rest of the descent at a leisurely pace.

As soon as we spotted a cafe, we pulled in. We had arrived at the small railway station at the bottom of the Snowdon Mountain Railway that runs all the way to the summit. We couldn’t see from there whether the summit had cleared of cloud by now, but it was nice and sunny in Llanberis for sure. We stoked our own boilers there and took on water to see us through to the end of the ride.

It felt like we had descended to the bottom of the hills and that it should be flat for the rest of the way, but we were wrong. We should have known better by now! In fact, there was a short but steep climb in store leading to the village of Ceunant that seemed much harder than the mountain climb. Or maybe we were just getting tired.

At least we were now getting glimpses of Caernarfon in the distance, so not too far to go. After a few more fast descents, we had to mix it with some fast traffic for a while, till we reached the outskirts of Caernarfon once more and were soon back at the castle.

It had been a brilliant day out on a brilliant route, fully deserving of the hype. Well, almost. I wasn’t so keen on the bits on the main road, but then again, maybe there would have been less of that if I’d managed to follow the proper route. So let that be a warning to anyone trying to use our route as a guide – contact Visit Snowdonia and ask them to make their GPX files on Mapometer public instead of private!

 

 

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