When I was about 14 or 15 years old, I saved up a bought myself a bike so that I could get myself to the neighbouring town under my own steam in order to work at the local Green Grocers. It’s now some years on, but it’s still just about going! Although a little TLC was required (along with some new inner tubes) before it was deemed ready for a mini-expedition up into the Nant Francon valley from The Cottage.

After some tinkering, head-scratching, a bit of brute force and some obligatory oily hands, we were looking ready to roll!

After a brief false start (I’d not tightened the back wheel on properly!), we set off along the Lon Las National Cycle Trail. After a nice gentle start around the base of Penrhyn Slate Quarry, there are several short steep sections which got us working hard, before eventually breaking out into the openness of the valley. We were both very glad that there had been no such uphill struggles in Denmark!

We had loosely set our sights on riding up to Ogwen Cottage and got quite close, but decided that slogging up the last uphill section wasn’t really what we were looking for in our afternoon ride. On the way back we stopped off at the river, but both concluded (wisely) that it was way too cold and windy to be jumping in a river.

After getting a few kilometres closer to home, Clare noticed that the bag that I’d had strapped to my panniers was missing! Ugh! We turned around and made a second ascent of the Nant Ffrancon! Luckily, the back was located by the river, where it must have bounced free during the brief off-road section. To avoid the up and down section at the end of the quarry, we used the A5 road, before rejoining the Lon Las Cycle track at Ogwen Bank Falls.
Our final detour was to see the new cafe that has opened at nearby ‘Zipworld’. The cafe was empty and just closing so we didn’t stop for a drink – only to admire the view of the emerald lake and surrounding quarry.

Tour Stats – 20.5km door to door…