Dams, dams and damn kites

The Elan Valley

My most recent ride (well it was when I drafted this!) was up in the Middle of Wales starting off at a place called Rhayader, which is very much a town on a cross-roads. It lies on the A470, the main artery road through the middle of Wales, roughly an hour and a half North of Cardiff. Rhayader is also home to the Red Kite centre - the National Bird of prey of Wales - and is the gateway to the Elan Valley. The Elan Valley is a series of dams that were built back in the 19th century to feed the growing population of Birmingham, the countryside surrounding the dams is quite spectacularly.

The route we took left at Rhayader and returned to the same spot, circling the dams and  stretching off to Llanidloes and running back down the A470 (which wasn't as scary as I thought it would be).

This is a good guide to the Dams: http://www.elanvalley.org.uk/dams-reservoirs/ 

Setting off from Rhayader we headed down to the visitor centre continuing straight past it and along the Elan river and up to Caban Coch dam. From there we travelled along the road up to Claerwen. This road goes no further and although means doubling back on yourself, is well worth the extra miles (I think you'll agree from the photo above).

The roads meaner through some truly beautiful countryside with breathtaking scenery before travelling across another dam, the Foel Tower. 

The road now follows the idylic reservoir to its mouth with the river that feeds it where the route turns rather steeper towards Pen y Garreg and then finally Craig Goch where we saw some filming being done on two land rovers for what I assume was Top Gear - no sign of the trio but the cameras had BBC on them.

Following the dam the route sets off for Llanidloes over what could be in bad conditions quite exposed landscapes to start with before dropping down into the valley and running parallel to the A470 - on the other side of the river and valley. At this point the ride became a little tedious as the route takes you through farm after farm over rolling hills with what seems like, a gate on the top of every hill - not fun.

So I'm sorry until you get to Llanidloes it becomes rather rubbish at this point - and quite energy-sapping. When we got to Llanidloes, a quick bottle of coke and some chocolate was in order! As nearly all my energy was gone by this stage we abandoned plans to take a longer minor road back to Rhayader and instead gunned it down the A470, time trial style which turned out to be the best part of the day!

Back in Rhayader and a quick pint was in order, as demonstrated by my mate Paul.

All in all it was a brilliant day - apart from the rolling hills with gates - and I'd highly recommend it.

Oh and in case you were wondering we saw a shed load of Red kites along the way but didn't manage to get one on my phone camera :(