I have got it so wrong and yet? BadBoy, I have used you so badly! In the Summer you were the ultimate 'no suss' mountain bike with balls, now there is my weight plus a full set of panniers fore-n-aft with chunky legs putting rear wheel skewing torque on to climb near vertical mountain slopes. I tightened up four loose spokes after breakfast, then BadBoy fully loaded climbed some four hundred metres above Dolgellau on country lanes and tracks, through and past amazing scenery to have five spokes tightened to true it's rear wheel again!
So now no time to visit Machynlleth's Centre for Alternative Technology, yet I did stop at their Cafe in town for thick hot veggie soup and pizza. To ensure power enough to take BadBoy's cluttered and overloaded frame up and over the 510 metre high Rhiw Fawr pass besides Foel Fadian as the Sun set red over Snowdonia.
I had decided to commit myself to the climb, the Steppes Easterly channeled by valleys to a Force 10, the miles of ridge high freezing cold riding, the water flows fording and painting the tracks a thick Ice White or a shiny Black!
A gamble that said: " I will have enough energy left to make the long high cold ride into Llanidloes; That BadBoy's rear wheel will not collapse; the bike lamps charge will last the journey; The descent will not chill extremities and dull my mind to danger!" and that I was confident of making a warm sheltered bivi near the Summit should it prove necessary whilst the clothes I was wearing would help maintain body and mind in the worst of conditions
Saved by a The Old Phone Box Changing Room Trick on the descent, the knowledge that walking and pushing warms the body and bits, that a gel energy tube with cafiene will get you thinking again when cold and exhausted.
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