Long and winding roads (in the cold)
So this wasn’t a particularly long road route, coming in at just over 30 miles, but it did take me an inordinately long time to get around the route.Here’s a map of the track I took, which loops from just North of Cardiff, up through Talbot Green/Llantrisant and out as far as Llwynypia before heading back down the little Rhondda towards Ponty and back towards Cardiff. This is a pretty good circular route under normal circumstances, given that it’s a fairly long climb out and then level-ish on the return with a final climb towards the finish.
Last Saturday saw pretty good conditions at the start of the route, which deteriorated towards the Northern end as snow and skin-smarting hail set in and the temperature dropped a couple of degrees (and remained low).The problem with the route was that my 9 year old original Mega9 Shimano chain decided it had had enough of being punished in winter weather and popped a link. Now this wouldn’t have been so much of a problem had I actually had a chain tool with me at the time, as losing a link is within tolerance - but I didn’t - so an unexpected walk to Ponty ensued in search of <oh the shame> a Halfords to pick up a new chain tool.Thankfully, after negotiating Ponty’ frankly RIDICULOUS roads and pedestrianisation schemes, I eventually wound up at Halford’s Bike Hut (helpfully located on the 1st floor of their store) and got things sorted. Big thanks to Tom at Ponty Halfords for doing the work whilst I had a mozy about the store - even if he did say that it was nice to see an Old Skool bike :-/ I think I’ll be needing my free bus pass soon.The rest of the day was marked by contrast to the first half as I took NCR 8 back in towards Cardiff, which is strewn with broken glass and litter all over the place down through the lower part of the Valley. It’s a pretty desperate and depressing place in winter weather, where (puts on Urban Geographers hat) successive former Welsh Office and Local Authority plans have sought to gentrify the larger urban areas in order to revitalise the valleys and surrounding towns. It hasn’t worked yet.The final stretch was a bit of a ‘mare as I’ve pretty much burnt out by the time I’d got back towards Radyr. This is what happens when you take a couple of weeks off and eat Floridian junk in between. Still, looking forward to taking a similar route again next week. 
Tags: cold, Cycling, evo2, garmin, gps, halfords, so cold, so very cold