All My Yesterday's

I have done many things over the years, crossed the Sahara by accident, written a book in Indonesian that led to my traveling the archipeligo, survived Mogidishu, had a ship pirated off Beirut, sailed the confluence of the Blue Nile & White Nile, watched in utter amazement as the entire crew of the vessel I was commissioning threw themselves into the sea and swam away, escaped the Libyan Secret Service Lock-Up etc. However, the last few days took me to the edge of exhaustion that the likes of the coldest Tough Guy event didn't manage! Because I got it wrong, doing too many miles a day whilst overloaded with kit on extrordinary trails hurts and exhausts after some nine hours in the saddle.

On a cycle tour you plan to cover a certain number of miles, when mountain biking you plan your route in hours and this adventure was more akin to mountain biking! So I needed to do it as light as possible, carry the minimum not 150 litres of luggage, wear the same clothes with only a few essential dry items stowed away and perhaps just the military survival blanket instead of the two panniers of survival gear I took!

So, having planned safe I had overloaded the bike for the trail I found myself doing and the planned daily mileage. Yet, having all the gear for surviving the mountain conditions gave me the confidence to ride solo, ride into the night and to do a nine hour day in the saddle. Wrong or right, the last three days in Snowdonia and the Cambrian Mountains exhausted me.

Last night Daffy joined me in Brecon and we plan to cycle todays leg to Pontypridd with a couple of friends, then celebrate New Year! To save my bikes wheels I intend to send two panniers on ahead with a friend who is driving down.

I would love to do those last three days again on a mountain bike with friends over some four days...