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cycle touring in wales - richard barrett. cicerone press paperback 234pp illus. £12.95
geography was never a subject at which i was much use. rather than learning about the locations of towns, cities and rivers etc., the lessons seemed more concerned with educating us as to the gross domestic product of small african nations, the socio-economic consequences of an itinerant population and meteorology affecting the disparate regions living under a unilaterally-named country. given that at least two of the foregoing are highly likely to be the subject of constant change, there was a greater than evens chance that those statistics would have altered by the time we'd left school.
what i did excel at, and a skill that made me highly popular with my classmates, was an innate ability to draw clearly legible maps. this became a highly tradeable feature that greatly assisted my chances of achieving a decent result come exam time. or at least, i naively hoped that would be the case. suffice it to say, my geographical studies came to a sudden halt past third year. happily, my map-making expertise has flourished in the intervening years, and still contributes to my present-day income.
however, when location-specific queries arrive, i rely solely on google maps for my edification.
thus, despite the country of wales being a composite feature of the united kingdom, if asked to hang the donkey's tail to indicate cardiff on a map, i can almost guarantee that tail would be mislocated. thankfully, were i about to undertake a cycling trip to cymru, richard barrett presumably achieved higher grades in geography than did i.
at just under 21,000 square kilometres, there's a great deal of wales to traverse by bicycle, should the choice to do so have been exercised. no matter whether you have in mind a fully-loaded touring trip, an excursion into the trendy world of backpacking, or simply a day out in the welsh countryside, this excellent cicerone guide has pretty much every base covered. and as we have come to expect, the opening pages of this compact and bijou introduction to cycling in wales are decicated to making you more than just wise before the event, not least as to when would be the best time of year to ride.
however, though it may be a wholly constituted, individual country, wales is still a part of the british isles and thus susceptible to the meterology suffered by the rest of us. mr barrett therefore advises visiting between the months of april and october. unless, of course, you're from the west of scotland, in which case all twelve are probably fair game. bikepackers will probably be happy to bivvy at suitable points along the way, while tourers and day trippers might be happier with a few home comforts. rest assured the topic of accommodation is suitably addressed.
the whole purpose, however, of cycling across or round any particular location is surely the attractions that can be seen en-route. here's where cicerone guides earn their well-commended reputation. mr barrett's parcours commences in cardiff, heading south-west to the intriguingly named 'the mumbles', near swansea. aside from being remarkably well delineated on accompanying maps, there are frequent 'asides' to advise the pedalling traveller of the sights passing their handlebars. such as st. donat's castle, for example.
"The American tycoon William Randolph Hearst purchased the medieval St Donat's Castle, now the Atlantic College, in 1925 and visited annually until 1936, typically with an entourage of film stars and famous politicians."
given the nature of the book, offering as it does, the chance to undertake single, or multiple day bike rides, there's the singular question of how to get to your chosen start point, without possibly havingto ride there in the first place. thanks to the existence of more than just a few railway stations, it's possible to access the vast majority of barrett's guided rides by train. the introduction makes planning the latter somewhat of a doddle, by way of a clearly defined graphic illustrating the proximity of railway stations to multiple grand départs.
as ever, the size of cicerone's cycling guides is well judged, fitting easily into one of your jersey's three rear pockets, or under the clear plastic afforded by a touring bar bag. additionally, the book's format describes not only a circumnavigation of the country, but, alternatively, several shorter routes criss-crossing from west to east (or vice versa). though you'd be forgiven for thinking that the present-day emphasis is on more extensive cycle-touring in distant countries, far, far away, there's still a great deal to be gained and enjoyed by staying closer to home as you enjoy the touring milieu.
just don't ride round wales without this guide book about your person.
tuesday 25 june 2019
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