Today’s ride started from our holiday cottage, a few miles south of Caernarfon, and went down to the end of the Llŷn Peninsula. The day was sunny, with blue skies and no clouds, although it was a little windy.
The first part of the route was down the A449, but this is provided with a reasonably good cycle path alongside. In places this is just a wide pavement, and in a few places it diverts from the road a little and follows what was the previous road, before widening took place. I’m not normally a fan of shared use footpaths, but in this case we met no-one and it did make the ride more pleasant.
At Trefor the road leaves the coast and heads upwards – into the wind, sadly – and then up again along the B4417. The first bit of this is very steep, but then settles into a slightly easier ascent (as far as ascents can ever be easy), with the high ground of the Tre’r Ceiri ancient fort on the right and views to Cardigan Bay on the left. The road wanders on through Nefyn and eventually on to Aberdaron, right at the end of the peninsula. We’d planned the route on minor roads, so rode closer to the coast than the B-road, with wonderfully blue sea to our right.
Aberdaron is a small village on a sandy bay, and was our tea-and-cake stop. And a visit from the fairy kept us there a quarter of an hour longer than we'd intended, but if you're going to have to fettle a bike, what more scenic place is there to do it?
From there the road climbs upwards again. The obvious route back to the starting point would involve joining the A499 to Pwllheli, but again we had planned on minor roads to avoid both the busy A road and the towns, and so wandered along a bit further inland, through several more long ups and downs. Going in this direction, the high points of the route gave us views into the mountains of Snowdonia, and also the mountains further south as far as Cadair Idris. The coast right round to Pembrokeshire was visible, albeit rather hazy.
The final leg of the trip, as the sun set, was joining the old railway path that parallels the A487. You can hear the traffic on the A road, but mostly cannot see it through the trees. There is a long, but shallow, climb to the col and then a long shallow descent on which it is very easy to build up a good speed – spoiled only by the need to stop now and then to open the gates when the path crosses a road or farm track!
By this time the sun was setting behind the higher ground to the west (due to the fact that we got up late, not to the length of the ride), so at times we got glimpses of a pastel blue sky fading into a pink horizon and purple sea, and to the east the odd glimpse of Snowdon turning mauve in the fading light.
Bike lights on as we rejoined the ‘real’ roads for the last couple of miles to the cottage – still under clear skies and still warm enough in only shorts and a cycling top – amazing weather for October!
69 miles, and a wonderful day out.
https://www.strava.com/activities/735434650
Fair play for doing that level of climbing day after day
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and to cap a good commute off they were playing 'Bob' as background music
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