Another hill climb this week, with all four of the South Wales regulars in attendance. When it comes to hills we’re spoiled for choice in this part of the world and having tackled the Rhigos mountain a couple of weeks earlier we switched to its sibling, the Bwlch, for our latest outing. These two climbs feature as end-of-season events hosted by the VCC — provided that we’re given the green light by the authorities, of course.
The Bwlch climb is a very popular one with locals and visitors to the area as the summit can be reached by any of three mountain roads — each starting in a separate local authority. If you’re going for a long ride in South Wales you’re never far from the slopes and the Bwlch climb[s] are bound to feature sooner or later.
This training ride started on the Treorchy side of the mountain, involved a climb of nearly three miles to the summit where all three roads meet, then a fast descent to the village of Nantymoel, a loop around the clocktower, and finally the return trip. More than three-quarters of the riding time is spent going uphill.
The starting order was chosen to allow for variations in climbing ability, with the aim of finishing close together. This meant that Simon went off first, setting a steady pace on the Boardman Air 9.0 and not seeing a co-rider until after the turn. Jeff was gaining quickly and moved ahead of Simon early in the return journey. Jeff had been the quickest rider at every one of our training sessions to date and was aiming to hold on to this honour by employing his familiar new-bike tactic. To be fair, it had been at least a fortnight since he’d last played that card so it was long overdue.
Dan was third on the road and was tipped to be the quickest on the night, having recently smashed the others’ PBs in his maiden journey up another local slope. We stuck him on an older heavier road bike for this outing to slow him down a bit.
Finally we had Rory in his colour co-ordinated bike/kit combo. At the post-ride meet-up he lamented a loss of time on the descents but it certainly didn’t seem that way to the others. More like a blur of orange and black.
The layout of the course means that we have split times for each section.
Quickest up the first climb was pre-ride favourite Dan who reached the top in 15:52 to earn advantages of 0:44 over Jeff, 1:07 over Rory and a massive 4:20 over Simon.
There was little change in the front three on the descent to Nantymoel, with Dan’s advantages to the turn being 0:46 and 1:09. Simon gained 22s on the leader during that leg.
Another climb for the third leg, which played to Dan’s strengths. Again he was quickest to the top, in 16:58 — a chunky 95 seconds ahead of his nearest rival, Jeff (18:33). Rory was nearly three minutes further back with his 21:28 and Simon trailed the field, more than another minute behind (22:38).
We didn’t know it at the time, but when we started our final descents Dan’s lead was pretty much insurmountable. As it turned out, Jeff gained 11 seconds on him over this segment and Rory and Simon each gained just over a minute.
But the overall result was clear, Jeff’s unbeaten run was over. He’d done a superb job setting the pace over the previous five rides but the margin was just two seconds to Simon on a TT course the previous week. And now Dan had well and truly snatched his title on a course where his power-to-weight ratio puts him in a class of his own.
Dan’s time of 45:16 puts him in the top 10% on the all-time list that features hundreds of seasoned riders. Not bad for a kid on a heavy bike and just a few months of riding experience!
It was still a great ride by Jeff, by the way. He and Dan both set overall PBs on the night. Rory and I were a few minutes behind our own PBs — but, as Rory helpfully reminded us, we were six years younger back then.