The Real Ale Wobble

What a filthy, wet and windy weekend that was!

Marvellous!

Some friends and I had booked some Bed and Breakfast accommodation in Llanwrtyd Wells for the Real Ale Wobble. So a bunch of 10, or so, of us pulled up on Friday night and started on the beers.

Not being a beer drinker, I stuck to good old fashioned lager. Everyone else was throwing back the Festival Beers and seemed to be reveling in the various aromas, tastes and tar-like consistencies on offer. One of our crew was on the cider for both nights, and I don't think he'll be touching it again for a few millenia. He was hanging drunk!

The ride on Saturday was, erh, interesting. I hadn't changed out of my mud tyres since I was feeling a bit lazy in the week leading up to it. So I "managed" with a crossmark on the rear and an ardent up front, through the muddiest and wettest ride I had ever been on. It was good fun though.

Huw? He fell in a river and got totally submerged. Keiran fell in during a bonus river crossing that Mark thought it would be funny to drag us through. Dan and Wanger nearly lost their bikes at this point in the day, too, as the river tried to sweep them away.

Brilliant.

We had to drink beer at a few "checkpoints" and then continue on our way, trying to keep warm. The ride was completed by a sign in and then a few more beers in the school hall.

The tyres worked well enough for the whole ride, except for the odd slip and slide in the deepest mud. This was also the first time I had used my new Polar G3 GPS. It was faultless and gave me a new insight into what my watch can do. It's so clever!

In the evening after washing, scrubbing and warming up, we all congregated in the Beer Tent at the back of one of the pubs. A few other people were obviously having the same sort of problems as I was having with the unfamiliar drinks racked up along the 15m long bar.

Lots of unfortunate aromas were following some uncomfortable looking people.

I'm glad it wasn't just me.