CONTENTS
Map key
Route summary table
Overview map
Ride planner from Cardiff
Ride planner from Chepstow
Suggested schedule summary from Cardiff
Suggested schedule summary from Chepstow
Introduction
Why Lôn Las Cymru?
How tough is it?
Which direction to ride?
Selecting a schedule
Getting there
First and last nights
When to ride
Accommodation
Baggage transfer
What to take
Preparing your bike
Eating
Phones and Wi-Fi
Emergencies
Waymarking
Maps
Using this guide
Lôn Las Cymru
Stage 1 Cardiff to Glasbury
Stage 1a Chepstow to Glasbury
Stage 2 Glasbury to Llanidloes
Stage 3 Llanidloes to Dolgellau
Stage 4 Dolgellau to Caernarfon
Stage 5 Caernarfon to Holyhead
Appendix A Cycle shops
Appendix B Accommodation
Appendix C Useful contacts
Appendix D What to take
Appendix E Welsh words and pronunciation
Appendix F Selected additional reading
Useful information and an excellent planner
The guide follows the standard Cicerone format of a section on general useful information first before a description of the routes.
An excellent planner gives schedules of between four and seven days with distances, climb and times for each variant.
I often wondered how cyclists deal with calculating ascent times. Walkers have Naismith's Rule, cyclists have "velocita ascensionale media" (VAM). I have now learned it takes as long to cycle 5 hilly miles as it does to cycle 8 flat miles at whatever pace you ride. Every day is a school day as they say!
Being across Wales the route is not flat, though the guide does say the gradients are never severe. You can look forward to around 50-60 miles and 1000m of ascent a day on a five day schedule giving around 8-10 hours day in the saddle. The guide is written south to north but with useful information if riding the other way.
The route follows a mixture of traffic free paths and quiet roads following Sustrans NCN8.
With 1:100,000 maps, complimented with larger scale maps for the bigger towns route finding should not be a problem as long as you keep your eyes peeled for the NCN signage. Maps at this scale tend to be fine for cycling from my experience. Alternatively you can download a GPX file from the publisher's web site and use that with a cycle satnav.
The start point is either Cardiff or Chepstow, with both variants coming together in Glasbury near Hay on Wye. The route then heads in a NW direction through Builth Wells and Llanidloes to Machynlleth and Dollgellau.
From Dolgellau the route follows the stunning Afon Mawddach rail route to Bar-mouth Bridge. From experience, this section is a "must do" on a glorious day, then a hilly section to Harlech and Porthmadog.
After Porthmadog use is made of an old rail track to Caernarfon and Bangor. Over the Menai Straights Bridge for 38 miles of relative flatness will ease the legs before the finish at Holyhead.
Most of the off road sections are on old railway lines. There appears to be only one "rough" section of old coach road approaching Rhayader where even the guide suggest you may be better pushing at times or using the nearby A470. Based on this the route should be suitable for most road/mountain/hybrid bikes.
The guide has a comprehensive appendix of hostel and bunk house accommodation, but very little in terms of camp sites.
First impressions are of a great week's ride, so now I have the guide perhaps it is worth thinking about in more detail.
Darren Tipper, Backpack magazine
Buy it and ride it!
LON LAS CYMRU loosely translates as 'Wales' Green Lane'. and with this helpful journey planner you'll be well set to explore its length from Cardiff to Holyhead. Barrett writes a good guide, giving you concise information about local sites, places to stay, transport links and route planning. That's fortunate as this book is light and fits in a jersey pocket. There's a ride planner for both directions, linked to a GPX file, and itineraries for doing the ride in four to seven days. Buy it and ride it!
Sam Jones, Cycle Magazine
A compact and bijou volume, a beautifully illustrated and detailed guide
wales and cycling could reasonably be described as one of those hand-in-glove situations, following geraint thomas' victory in this year's tour de france. this is not to suggest that the country has been left derelict when conversation turns to velocipedinal matters, but after prince bradley and froomey, at least the emphasis has moved a tad west for a change. but, just as wearing a pair of specialized peter sagan shoes will scarcely make you eligible to wear the rainbow bands, neither will a potter about the lanes of cymru prepare you for those three weeks in july.
thankfully, for us mere mortals, cicerone press are not noted for their sporting excesses, happy to remain more concerned for the geographical well-being of the more average touring cyclist. author and cyclist, richard barrett has produced a compact and bijou volume detailing, as evinced by the book's subtitle, '250 miles through the heart of Wales on traffic-free paths and quiet roads'. a far cry indeed from the cobbled streets of the champs elysées.
this beautifully illustrated and detailed guide does not, however, require that the average cyclist, as mentioned above, attempt to swallow each and every one of those 250 miles in one fell swoop. rather than place hitherto unheard of demands upon the more casual cyclist, barrett has split the distance into five considerably easier stages, leading from the start in cardiff and ending farther north in holyhead. as is frequently the case with cicerone guides, options abound; there is really no need to undertake the stages in the order prescribed by the author, or, for that matter, to ride all of them during one visit.
after all, geraint might be busy elsewhere that week.
the best bits of a cicerone guide, in my opinion, are contained within the opening pages, the portion of the book that prefaces any impending cycle tour. in this particular case, pages 8 and 9 offer a highly informative map displaying the route in its entirety, with corresponding distances appended along the way. and a matter of ten or so pages later, there's a diagrammatic rendering of railway stations adjacent to lôn las cymru, should you wish to jump from here to there, without turning a pedal (so to speak).
to aid in the planning of any such cycling trip, with times based on an average cycling speed of 16kph, barrett has provided colour coded suggested schedules based on four, five, six and seven day expeditions. he also points out that the very existence of lôn las cymru can be laid at the door of the unwitting richard beeching who, in the early 1960s, recommended the closure of one-third of the uk's railway network. some of those former rail routes have subsequently found themselves absorbed into the national cycle network, along which portions of lôn las cymru will take the intrepid cyclist.
lest you have thoughts of your trammeling across wales leading to your becoming the next geraint thomas, the author smartly disavows you of that notion by advising that you 'Leave your best carbon frame and carbon wheels at home.' and subsequently that you 'Attach a bell, which is essential for negotiating pedestrians on shared-use paths.'however, it is not solely cycling matters that are uppermost in his mind, publishing as he has, a list of 'Ten (culinary) specialities to try when in Wales'.
the routes themselves feature not only step by step directions to ensure you enjoy your ride and the scenery, without ending up in deepest yorkshire due to a wrong turning. these are peppered with box-outs describing aspects of the surrounding area that you may find interesting. there is nothing worse than returning home to discover that you'd missed some (or all) of the more notable points of interest.
it's perhaps a mite late in the year to be setting out on a 250 mile adventure, the length and breadth of the welsh nation, if only because the weather may not offer the succour you'd hoped for. however, it's never too early to start planning next year's cycling trip.
washingmachinepost, wednesday 19 september 2018
