Day 6: St. Briavels to Knighton (65.18 miles)

We wake the next morning to find the castle surrounded by mist, a persistent rain soaking everything. It’s clear we’re going to get wet today, and we could well be starting in wet clothes – we’d washed our clothes the night before, and the hostel’s drying room hasn’t done much drying. We have a rushed breakfast, before trying to dry all our clothes off under hand dryers in the toilets before packing.

Eventually we’re ready to wave goodbye to Helen and Thomas (Thomas tells us we look like “warriors”), and set off into the mist. We drop straight down into the valley at the foot of the Black Mountains, and follow this to Monmouth. By the time we’re out of Monmouth, the rain has stopped, and we pause to put away our rain gear. We’ll be spending the day weaving in and out of the border between England and Wales, but there’s nowhere obvious to stop for lunch, so after midday we start keeping our eyes open for a café or tea room.

This ride was conducive to a number of things, and one of those was compiling lists of things. When we stopped in Grosmont, at the top of a steep hill, we didn’t realise we were about to find a definite contender for the honour of heading our list of ‘Top Five Lunches’. The tea room we’ve stopped outside looks at the slightly fussier end of tea rooms, so we try and tidy ourselves up a bit, put on our best winning smiles, and enter. Things are soon looking up when we’ve got our tea, and found out that not only do they do a cheese ploughmans with a choice of three Welsh cheeses, but these three come from a whole menu of cheeses. This is all topped off by the fact that the boy serving us looks like me at about age 14, and Al has to try hard not to point and giggle at this fact. We have a nice chat with a few people there, who wish us luck on our journey, before we have to leave.

By now we have developed a fairly good system of riding together. Most of the time the person in front has checked the route card, is watching for the right turning, and gives warning in advance when they’ve spotted it so that the person behind is ready for the turn. If there’s some distance between us, the person in front waits at the junction. The system fails horribly around Dorstone. I’m in front, watching for a right turn towards Brewardine, with Al pretty close behind. I see the turn late as it’s a sharp turn on a corner, so I just indicate and make the turn. Round the corner I see the sign indicating that the hill is going to be 1 in 4, and a glance over my shoulder, see Al, so I start tackling the hill. Unfortunately, when I’d seen Al, he was going all the way round the corner, having missed me somehow. The hill is as nasty as the sign suggested – it kicks up hard at first, flattens out a bit, and then just when you think you’re getting to the end, kicks up again. I know Al is still finding the hills hard work, so I expected to wait at the top. Just not for quite as long as I do.

Deciding something must be wrong, I reluctantly start going back down the way I’ve come. I half expect to see him stopped at the side of the road, using industrial strength language about the gradient of the hill, but by the time I get to the bottom and there’s no sign of him, I’ve started to worry seriously. Unsure of what to do, I decide to start carrying on down the road past the turning. On seeing someone mowing their lawn, I ask whether they’ve seen another cyclist on this road. They look at me like I’m mad. I get directions to the nearest payphone, and start across a churchyard, as directed, to find this. As I’m doing this, I spot a flash of yellow from the road, and start shouting Al’s name. The relief is tangible, as are Al’s apologies when he realises quite how tough the hill I’ve now had to do twice is.

After this minor drama, the rest of the day is reasonably straightforward, other than my legs having another off day for the last hour or so. The final climb towards Knighton is hard work, and I really start to suffer. The sight of the George and Dragon, where we’re staying for the night, is welcome indeed.

We’ve now done 377.18 miles.