The Long Way Down on the Road of Stones

Lord Snooty

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Having arrived a little later than expected on Saturday morning me and my mate Bill decided to do our own thing. :aidan We headed off to Betwys Coed and then headed off over a series of mountain passes and eventually stopped by a secluded beach just north of Trefor for lunch. After lunch we took some unclassified roads, some of which were gravel tracks and had a whale of a time heading towards Bala, Porthmadog and then Lake Vrynwry. From Lake V, Bill set the GPS to take us to Llangollen by the shortest route to see where it would take us...at this point we expected to be back by about 5pm. All was well and the roads and views were stunning and we both had big grins all over our chops when we came to a crossroads. The GPS said dead ahead which was marked as "Unsuitable for Motor Vehicles" at this point we could have opted to go left or right and stay on tarmac but Bill turned round with a silly grin on his face and stuck his thumb up :thumb so I did likewise and off we launched into the unknown. This turned out to be a big mistake and was akin to the moronic leading the imbecilic:blast

At first the road seemed to be a reasonably rideable gravel track which started to get steeper. After a few minutes this happened....and this was on the easy bit.
Ok no major problems, a scratched engine bar and a bruised shin...onwards we go.
 

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...continued

As we proceeded the track deteriorated and got steeper and the gravel turned to stones and larger rocks, things started to get awkward and very slow! :mmmm Here's Bill's Adventure staring down the abyss. Things were going to get a lot worse.
 

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Oh bloody hell!!!

We struggled onwards as the gravel disappeared and had been totally replaced with large rocks and stones we turned a corner to find ourselves facing this:eek: A series of extremely shiny, slippery steps; some of them dropping 8-10 or more inches and the slope had increased in steepness. We realised at this point that we were in deep doo doo and the potential for catastrophe was very real. A bad fall could easily result in a broken limb; we sat down to catch our breath and to consider our options. Turning the bikes round and going back was not on so we decided that we would have to manhandle the bikes one at a time in 20 yards sections. Bill would take the left side of the bike and operate the brake and clutch, we did not have the engine running but put the bikes in gear. We would recce the distance to be covered and remove any large rocks to try and make the pathway as easy as possible. By now we were very hot and losing lots of fluid through sheer physical exertion and walking up and down the hill and clearing rocks away, the temperature guage was reading 24C. We knew that Bill's bike would be the hardest because of its extra weight plus the panniers and it didn't help matters that not long before we found ourselves in this place we had filled up with petrol. Great! :( just what we needed - an additional 30kgs of weight sloshing around in the GSA fuel tank..ho hum. Now started the long, difficult and arduous task of slowly and carefully manhandling the beasts over these series of treacherous stone drops.
 

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Whilst Bill controlled the brakes I held the bike on the right hand side by the engine bars and rear footpeg holder. With my legs facing down the slope I was literally walking backwards keeping the bike balanced and helping Bill to control the descent. On two occasions the front wheel skewed badly and the bike toppled over to me and I found myself almost horizontal with my legs extended holding up the weight of the bike. This was where all those years of rugy training and scrummaging came in handy as I just dug in and drove my legs forwards and propelled the bike into an upright position. Each time we moved either bike 20 yards we had to pause and sit down to catch our breath and to give our by now aching muscles time to recover. We realised that to continue without the breaks would increase the possiblity of our physical tiredness causing us to lose concentration and maybe end up with the bike on top of either of us. This shot shows Bill returning from a recce and you can see that as if things weren't already bad enough we now had water emerging causing the underfoot conditions to deteriorate....oh joy!:spitfire The photos simply do not do justice to the steepness of the slope.
 

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Yer daft bugger!
Your photos don't show how steep that really is.

This years Off Road ride had the option of coming down that very track - most of us declined :rolleyes:

I have prior knowledge of the track having spent 2 hours trying to go up there at Llangollen 2002.
 

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Time for another rest

Here we are a little further on and you can see the fatigue etched on Bills face, by now both of us were dripping with sweat and our t-shirts were drenched. To make matters worse we had now drunk what water we had been carrying. We did not know how much further we had to go before we returned to tarmac and to be honest neither of wanted to find out in case the answer would scare us:eek: We needed to stay upbeat, motivated and maintain our morale - finding out we might still have another half a mile to go might cause despondency and a mental collapse (mind you that probably happened when we made the decision to ignore the earlier warning signs:mmmm ) We kept ourselves going by taking the piss out each other :monkeypiz and dreaming of the gallon of beer we would be sinking later that evening.
 

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Are we there yet dad?

I'm pretty well knackered myself at this stage but we think we can see light at the end of the tunnel. After a recce the slope appears to flatten out a little and the track becomes a little more bike friendly with a return to gravel. The end may well be in sight.:thumb
 

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Rideable again!

A further 100 yards onwards and as you can see the track has lost the deep rutting and has returned to fairly small gravel. For the first time in about 2 hours we are able to kit up and get back on the bikes and ride them. ;) Things are definitely looking up:thumb We may well get our well deserved beer yet. :beer: :beerjug:
 

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Nice pictures.
Next time your anywhere near Exmoor give me a shout and I'll point you in the direction of Stoney Lane near Exford, its a total nightmare that'll I'll never try again.
 
Alleluliah!

After riding a further 50-80 yards the track disappeared and became tarmac again....yippeeee! At the bottom of the track there was a house with about half a dozen people chatting and drinking....the look of astonishment on their faces was incredible. They could not believe that we had managed to come down unscathed and with the bikes in one piece. We took off our helmets and chatted with them for a couple of minutes, as much out of relief at having made it and of course we were a bit hyper with adrenalin. They very kindly refilled our water bottles and we rehydrated, we were both shaking a little due to the physical exertion of the last two hours and with dehydration. We decided that we deserved a photo of triumphalism and one of the party took this for us.

Two hours to cover three-quarters of a mile, about 6 pints of fluid lost, a little blood and some bruises and totally knackered. The old adage "Look before you leap" comes to mind. Incidentally the track brought us out into Llangollen on the south side of the A5 just a few yards down from the traffic lights at Castle Road. We arrived back at the campsite about 7pm just grateful to be their. We both sunk about 5 pints in the Hand Hotel before either of us had the urge to :monkeypiz
 

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I lobbed my 250 Honda trying to ride back up there last year with Terry. It was "interesting" riding down it on an enduro bike. You did the right thing walking down it, but you definately did the wrong thing setting off down there!:blast
I'd have bought you a couple of beers each for that, had I known.:D
Mark
 
what a brill adventure well done for getting down without breaking your collective necks, is that the place where some bloke got stuck going up on an HP? the picture looks really familiar... perhaps someone clever could search it back out.
 
Great pics snoot. You'd have pissed it if you were wearing that well 'ard looking waistcoat of yours. That off road gear just doesn't do your manly physique justice!!!!

Glad your safe and had fun :thumb2
 
Looks alright to me - cant see what you were worried about. Just slap it in first and control it with engine braking surely :p
 
Yes Allt Y Badi is routed on GPS and a rather special lane
We must have come down just after you had gone as we arrived at the Hand at 7:30, so help was on its way. Mind you there was only Jonny Boxer, on his rather special airhead, that was on a GS.
Well down for getting down in one piece, Snoopy went over the handle bars of his DRZ:eek: but he was ok. I think that it will be a while before you forget this experience, how about going on a Timpo ride out next year:green gri
 
Well done fellas, you weren't exaggerating!
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall (or a squirrel up a tree, perhaps) and watched that! :D
 
Hells bells Snoots, that looks terrifying :yikes :yikes :yikes :yikes :yikes

The pictures didn't look that bad on the camera at dinner :eek

Well done for getting out alive :clap
 


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