Preseli Scorcher

With everyone bathing in a mini 30 deg heatwave at home, it was my turn today. 25 degs, hot but tempered with a refreshing bit of breeze. The hottest day of the week so far and a great day to be out on the bike.

Today was the day I was off for a ride with my mate Chris. He was a 30 min drive away so I packed up and left about 9.20am and headed cross-country soaking up some amazing cross-valley views en-route to his place at Boncath, near Cardigan.

Pleasantries done we set off and quickly dropped out of the village direction Bwlch-y-Groes but not the famous one from North Wales. This was just a small village. Still a draggy climb though to warm us up then right and up again to superb views out to the coast as we passed Frenni Fawr on our right. Quite lanes too, loved it.

A Maenclochog we stopped briefly at Caffi’r Sgwar, a lovely little cafe to fill up Chris’ bottle. The main climb over the Preseli’s beckoned. It’s been on my list all week.

Before that though we took a minor detour into Rosebush to take a look at the local pub that’s covered in corrugated iron and the site of an old railway that served a quarry we’d see up the climb.

We attacked the Preseli’s from the shorter but steeper side. It goes up in stages over cattle a cattle grid giving way to amazing views over to the quarry, to the right, the old railway through Rosebush used to serve. Just amazing stuff but the heat and sun didn’t make it any easier.

We stopped at the top briefly and then dropped down the other side and went rogue and off to the left to find the Bluestone Brewery. The signage was a bit iffy. After a lengthy steep decsent we hit a left turn which said half a mile to it but a mile later we were wondering if we’d passed it only to find it 100 yards further on around the corner. What a place! A working farm and brewery with it’s own taproom. We had a delicious IPA which was really refreshing. The loos were funny too. Urinals made from old, plastic beer kegs with names of well known beers like Stella, Coors Light etc pointing to each one implying they’re just piss. It made me chuckle.

We now had to find Pentre Ifan, a 5000 year old burial chamber Chris had said was definitely worth a look. We took directions from a member of staff but quickly got lost in the lanes and found ourselves on the outskirts of Newport. We didn’t fancy the steep climb back the way we came so opted for a bit of the relatively quiet main road before we picked up signs for it and detoured off right and up a stedy climb to it. It was worth the effort just to see the 16 ton piece of rock floating on the others. Apparently the bluestone rock (I guess where the Brewery got there name from!) is found at Stonehenge too. Great views out to sea here too.

At Brynberian we got back on track and headed for home. The sun was at full strength now and some of lanes were roasting. At Blaenffos we hit the main A478 for a short kicker before right to Boncath and a downhill finish for home. We were well baked.

Only 60km long but a tough 1000m of climbing made it a great day out for the views and the company.

Thanks Chris, we’ll do it again soon mate