Welsh National Rally; May 2006
Running on Empty at Staylittle
The first weekend in May arrived and with it the Welsh National Rally. On Friday 5th May, Chris and I rode up from Corfe Mullen to a farm B&B at a place called Criggion just south of Oswestry we had booked into for the night. As we're doing the RBR this year we also took the opportunity to bag 6 landmarks on the way up:
- Runston Chapel, Caerwent #80
- Wheel of Drams, Ystrad Mynach #75
- Canal Basin, Brecon #82
- Village Pound, Eardisley #19
- Lime Kilns, Berriew #83
- Farmer's Statue, Oswestry #34
Friday was a lovely day and it was nice to sit out in the sun having lunch at a Pub in south Wales. The canal basin at Brecon was also very pretty. Eardisley was a bit of a strange place however and we had difficulty with locating the village pound. (We probably got that one wrong?) We finally arrived at our B&B around 8pm. The B&B was very comfortable and we rested up after our sweaty day of searching for landmarks.
After going north the last two years we decided to go south and the route below is the one we took. You can think of the route as running clockwise around South Wales with Welshpool being in the 1 o'clock position. The route satisfies the citeria for a platinum award by going through 3 manned controls, 15 unmanned controls and 4 dragon controls. Including the start control at Welshpool and the finish control at Castle Caereinion this makes 24 controls in total. (We didn't plan to do any RBR landmarks on the rally as we knew that the platinum would be enough for us.)
After a good breakfast at the B&B we rode to the start at Welshpool in lovely sunshine. We had been in touch with Rob from Wolverhampton before the rally but he wasn't sure whether he was going to be able to make it this year. We were pleased to see Rob had turned up and brought a mate with him, Pete. We all checked in and picked up the clues we would have to answer for the unmanned and dragon controls. The theme for the dragon this year was Welsh Industry. The three bikes set off around 9am from the Welshpool start. A good mix of bikes, Pete on his FJR1300, Rob on his K1200S and, Chris and I on our Blackbird. (With his tinted visor, loud exhaust and accessories, Rob is not quite what you think of as BMW rider, more like something out of 'Mad Max'.)
We started a bit tentatively with me getting us lost in Newtown, our first control! Anyway, we settled down and pressed on to Llanidloes (where it nearly all went wrong on the way back.) Even though we were close by at Llanidloes, we decided to leave the Staylittle control until last when we passed back through Llanidloes on the way to the finish. Our reasoning for doing this was that we might not get to the last manned control at Efailwen before 6pm, at which time all the manned controls close, if we did Staylittle. On reflection, I'm not sure this was a good idea.
From Llanidloe we went to St. Harmon and from there to the dragon control, Pen-Y-Carreg. As we passed through Rhayader, I saw some police talking with some trial riders. Naively thinking that the police were having a friendly chat with the locals in the interests of good public relations I shouted good morning as we went by. The police gave me withering stares back. As I rounded the corner I saw several police cars and a load of police booking about 50 trial bike riders. I suppose they were doing their job but the police in Powys don't seem as friendly as most. Anyway, with the all the police back in Rhayader, we had a good ride out to the Pen-Y-Carreg dam and hydroelectric works. What a fantastic ride.
After Pen-Y-Carreg, it was onto Crossways for our first rest stop. Rob was burning the 'candles at both ends' so a drop of caffeine was a good idea. After Crossways came Talgarth and Tretower as we entered 'The Valleys'. The next control was a dragon at Blaenavon, the theme being iron and coal. After that came Tredegar and another dragon control at Garwnant. This time the theme was forestry. For Chros and I, this was the second time we had been up the A470 from Merthyr towards Brecon. A nice road that one.
After Garwnant came the Llandovery manned control were we stopped for a long lunch. (It's a good biker's cafe and we remembered stopping at it on our way home last year.) We then stopped at the Llandeilo and St. Clears unmanned controls on our way to our last dragon control at Tenby where the theme was tourism. I seem to remember there were a couple of very heavy showers around this time? After Tenby we headed north for our last manned control at Efailwen. We got there around 5:30pm so perhaps it was a good thing that we hadn't tried to do Staylittle on the way down? We didn't seem to have any time to spare.
After a rest at Efailwen, we pressed on to Aberporth, a pretty little place on the coast. From Aberporth, we went to Newcastle Emlyn and then a bit of dirt tracking to get to Llanpumsaint. The Llanpumsaint clue "who is commemorated on the memorial?" caused us a few problems as we couldn't find any memeorial. Chris and I stopped to ask some locals where we might find a memorial while Rob and Pete scoured the village. Eventually, someone who sounded like her name might be Myfanwy bellowed from a top floor window where we would find a memorial. Thanks to her, we found the memorial and answered the clue.
After Llanpumsaint, we went to Llanbydder and Tregaron. This is where we made our mistake. Lampeter is between these two and being a reasonably sized town has petrol stations. We would have filled up there if we had reaslised what lay ahead, i.e. no open petrol stations. Anyway, after Tregaron we went to the abbey at Strata Florida, our penultimate control (not including the finish). After Strata Florida, it was a long ride back to the finish popping in at Staylittle to claim our last control. Off we set for the finish with the light fading and the rain starting. We passed through Devil's Bridge and headed for Llanidloes where we expected (and needed) to fill up with petrol.
The rain had started when we left Strata Floriad and by the time we got to Llanidloes it was chucking it down. It was gone 9pm and dark when we arrived so I stopped and asked a local where the petrol station was. It's over there and it closed at 6pm was the answer. It's Saturday night in the wilds of Wales, bugger! Now Pete on his FJR was OK for petrol but Rob and I were a bit worried by this development, especially as there was a 15 mile round trip from Llanidloes to the last control at Staylittle to do. For a minute, I did contemplate packing up the rally and looking for somewhere to stay for the night in Llanidloes. I had two segments showing on my digital fuel gauge but I knew it was one of those gauges that doesn't move for quite a while and then all of a sudden it plummets to empty.
Being so near the end we decided to chance it. So in the pitch dark with it chucking it down we headed off to Staylittle. After negotiating the toturous twisty road to Staylittle we arrived. Staylittle is basically just a few houses strung out down a road. My fuel gauge is now showing one segment now and we have to solve the clue "entering the village from the Llanidloes side, what does it say on the bench on the mound beside a plaque next to the tree?" Now I'm panicking because I can't see the side of the road very easily in the dark and rain let alone the collection of objects I need to find. Luckily Pete stayed calm, got off his bike and worked it all out. I held the torch while he wrote down what was on the plaque. Thanks Pete.
On the way back to Llanidloes, the last segment on my fuel gauge starts flashing red. How much fuel does that mean I have? We set off for Newtown hoping that there's a petrol station there and that Mr Honda has not set too low a threshold for his fuel gauge to start flashing a warning. It seemed a long time but we eventually got to Newtown where a kindly drunk pointed us at a 24 hour petrol station. I put around 19 litres of fuel in the bike which meant I had a couple of litres left. With a tank full of petrol we negotiated the back lanes to the finish at Castle Caereinion. By now, the rain had really comeon strong. Not pleasant that bit.
We got to the finish around 11.15pm. We all had a meal, and then Chris and I said our goodbyes to Rob and Pete as they made off for Wolverhampton and we left for the Ludlow Travelodge. (There was no way that Chris was going to sleep on the floor again after the Aberystwyth TA last year.) We got to the Travelodge around 1:45am Sunday morning to be greeted by a very chirpy person at the desk. It was a pleasure to ride the rally with a couple of good riders like Rob and Pete. The only thing was keeping up with Rob after his staring role in Ride magazine's 'how to corner more quickly' article. Many of the roads in Wales are lovely winding roads and I can confirm that a combination of course and bike have made a difference to Rob's cornering. I think we all found the rally tough this year.
On Sunday on the way back home to Corfe Mullen we bagged some more RBR landmarks:
- Maypole, Offenham #45
- Lych Gate, Long Compton #43
- Keble's Bridge, Eastleach Turville #16
Not a bad weekend. We had a good ride with some good mates around Wales, picked up the platinum and dragon awards for the Welsh National Rally and, made it to bronze award for the RBR. 782 miles in total.