I have a dirty confession to make: I haven't actually ridden a unicycle
very much for ages. What with doing the last 24 hour race on two wheels
and various trips away riding two wheeled contraptions the unicycles
had been left gathering dust.
That lasted until last weekend, when prompted by the bank holiday and
an assertion by "Into The Blue" that 'Wales doesn't have its fair share
of impressive countryside' (http://tinyurl.com/mdlxj) I suddenly had an
urge to go ride the muni around some proper big scenery.
After a quick fettle to silence a creak evident on the last muni ride
it was off to the Black Mountains just over the Welsh border. There
aren't many trails around the area, but this is more than made up by
the sheer scale of those that do exist; the desolate ridges feel a very
long way from civilisation but provide a few of the most technical and
lengthy descents I know.
The trail started with a gentle grassy slope upwards, but the looming
face of the nearest hill meant that the trail soon became unrideable as
it headed steeply upwards, gaining 300 metres of height in just under a
kilometre. The trail is fairly wide but formed of loose rocks strewn
over large rocky steps for most of the way, and difficult enough to
walk up even without lugging a muni along. On reaching the top I was
tempted to turn around and try it as a descent, but while it looked
utterly exhilarating I would be kidding myself if I thought I could
reach the bottom without smashing myself to pieces on the rock.
Here the trail levelled out slightly, heading along a grassy ridge
towards the highest point in the area. The sun-baked, peaty ground
makes a hollow rumbling as I spin upwards, punctuated by the occasional
thud as the large tyre rolls over rocks embedded in the ground. The
view up here is incredible; either side of the trail the grassy slopes
are very gentle, but half way towards the horizon they fall away
suddenly to reveal the much lower valley floor in the distance.
The summit is marked by a large rock in a clearing amongst the heather,
where my path turned to descend an adjoining ridge. The trail sees few
people but a lot of water as the peat bogs drain; a vast network of dry
gullies cut into the heather-topped peat makes for an excellent mile of
high-speed swoop-tastic riding. In my peripheral vision I just can see
the heads of a group of walkers in a parallel gully sticking up above
the heather, watching what they presumably think is another bike
zooming along.
The peat walls either side drop lower as the ridge reaches a rocky
outcrop at the end of the gentle part of the descent. The trail gets
rockier and drops down to a slightly lower shoulder of the ridge where
another track crosses the hill. This is the start of the descent I came
here for; a quick dose of jelly babies and I'm rolling towards the
rocky notch in the hillside, wondering what the next mile is going to
be like given that I've only cleared it on a bike - with all the
advantages of two wheels, brakes and suspension - once out of three
attempts...
The trail starts as a set of parallel sheep tracks but soon merges into
a rocky chute winding around a protruding bit of hill. To start with
the wide tyre soaks up the smaller rocks making progress quite fast;
soon, however, the rocks get larger until each one forms a large step
that needs to be ridden over while trying to scan the path ahead for
the best line...
The next fifteen minutes passes in a blur of bouncing down the trail,
fast enough so the wheel flies over smaller rocks while desperately
trying to keep control for the way ahead. Going through my head is the
nagging thought that I really should invest in some more leg armour
since my aged 661s passed away last year, as a proper fall here could
be serious; fortunately the three UPDs I have while dramatic are fairly
trivial, although all of them happen within sight of walkers going up
the trail! Each time I had to turn to retrieve the muni I could see
eyes on me from people further up the trail, each presumably thinking
"...nutcase..." as I remount and continue to lurch down the hill.
The gradient eases near the bottom as the trail passes through a gate
and along a deeply rutted and rocky farm track. The middle is too rocky
to ride straight along, but the earthen banks each side make the track
into a fun half-pipe a quarter of a mile long which makes progress
possible by alternating from side to side, just maintaining the
momentum to clear the rocky section in the middle.
From here it's one last climb up a relatively smooth farm track and a
spin along sheep tracks around the base of the hill back to the start
of the first descent. Spinning down the grassy track back to the car I
pass a group of mountain bikers going the other way; they are heading
up the same way I did, which means carrying bikes on shoulders for
almost forty minutes up to the top. They might have it easier on the
way back down, but the muni certainly makes that climb an awful lot
less painful!
The GPS says roughly ten miles across and nine hundred metres up; at
the time it didn't feel all that bad, and had there been any shorter
loops that didn't involve trekking up to the top again I might have
continued. Three days later, however, I can barely walk! If anyone
needs any more proof that unicycling uses different muscles from biking
they just have to watch me limping around all day with my thigh muscles
on fire. I guess this is payback for ignoring the unicycles for so
long...
Phil
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--
phil
"Cattle Prods solve most of life's little problems."
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