Day 3 - Hereford to Snowdon. Hills and Knee Pain

No signal last night.119.8 miles, 7513 ascent, 13.8 mph avg,



Hereford to Penn-y-Pass (Snowdon)

This was the day we were most scared of. Cycling through the middle of Wales into Snowdonia was going to be hilly. The gradient map showed us individual climbs of over 1500ft!

The distance we covered yesterday really had taken its toll on my right knee, and then my left knee because I'd had to use the left leg more to compensate for the weakness in the right. I had called Richard Barnes, a friend and excellent Rugby based sports therapist for some advice last night and was hoping the stretches I'd done and the changes I was going to make to the bike would help.

I'd decided to change back to my old SPD pedal and shoe setup in the hope that my knee would prefer being in its old position, not that it had changed much but I had to try it. After 15 mins of Sonny trying to change my pedals while i massaged my legs with a rolling pin we decided it best to find a bike shop in Leominster who would do it for us. Phil Prothero turned out to be an awesome guy who really helped us out. He told us that Sonny had been turning the pedals the wrong way, which made us all really quite happy for some odd reason. He'd also injured his shoulder in the process. D'oh!
Phil changed my pedals free of charge, what an awesome guy.



It soon became clear that my knee was not just painful, but I was unable to put down enough power for us to make the progress we needed to to make our target destination. We made our way 50miles to Welshpool en route taking in a few hills at a painful 2mph. Rubbish!! I called Gem who tried to find someone to look at my knee for when we got to Welshpool. Hopefully someone could sort me right out!

Turned out they couldn't.

Here we are a few miles from welshpool crossing the border. Note how rubbish I feel :-)





After another phone call to Rich it became clear that there was no quick fix to the problem and it was bothering me that i was holding everything up deciding what to do. A difficult decision was made to send Sonny off on his own for the next 20 miles while I massaged the bits of my leg Rich told me to. For us to have any chance of making Snowdon by sunset, it had to be done. Not at all happy about it but it had to be done.

We decided to meet up again at the base of the big climb as we thought it important that we tackle the most difficult sections together. So 20 miles lost was not so bad, not what I had wanted but unfortunately neccessary.

We were both apprehensive about the climb as we'd looked at the gradient map for the last few months knowing it was steep, long and high. It didn't disappoint! We both really enjoyed it, it was an actual mountain like you see on le tour, awesome. Knee felt good and we were on our way again.

On the bike about half way up the climb:





Sonny near the top:



Me near the top:



Over the top of the climb, my favourite photo of all:




Snowdonia is gorgeous, stunning views and an amazing descent from whatever mountain it is we climbed. We had a few tiny B roads to tackle with some short sharp climbs but it was all good fun and a relief that after a good massaging, my knee felt better.

I had managed 35 miles after getting back on the bike which was more than I expected but on the last few small climbs the knee went again and i had to call it a day 15 before the end. Really not happy but it was getting dark. Sonny manned right up and went on alone along the mountian roads to the starting point for our Snowdon climb in the morning. Good work.

Sonny arrived at Pen-y-pass just before dusk which meant we saw an amazing sunset! Phil managed to get some cool pics - LOOK:






Hopefully with some nurturing my knee will hold up for the mountain climb tomorrow and the subsequent 60 mile cycle into Liverpool.

Andy