Bikepacking England’s south coast to Wales Day 10: Brecon to Abergavenny?

Hi and welcome to WannaGoBiking. My name is Arjan and it is time for a new Bikepacking Adventure! In June ’23 Peter-Jan and I started cycling from Folkestone towards Wales. It was a fun and beautiful ride along the south coast, Isle of Wight , New Forest, Bath and Bristol.
In this final episode I decided to abandon my plans altogether because of pending bad weather and massive Beaufort 5 headwinds. So instead I headed the other way towards Abergavenny ( and beyond..)
Hope you like it, enjoy your rides and stay safe out there !
some end stats:
kms ridden: 708
elevation gain:8520 meters
hours in the saddle: 39:28

* If you like the music, unless listed below, it is on epidemic sounds.
If you use the referral below you get a nice discount:
https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/bl2e4i
* Title music Moving by Supergrass
* Have a nice day by Stereophonics
Chapters:
intro 00:00
ready to go 00:26
have a nice day 01:47
04:15 walk down a road
05:20 first bridleway
06:35 milk chocolate factory
09:19 abergavenny
10:57 waiting on a train
12:16 next serie is up ahead

Hi and welcome back to WannaGoBiking where I’m about to set off for yet another day of cycling in Wales I’m just about to  leave my beautiful Farmhouse guest house had a fantastic breakfast as well very good reception and yeah very happy to to have been here

I just made a few alterations to  my plans all together for various reasons but I’ll fill you in on that later so I’m heading East instead of West today see you later right and we’re off so depending how  things pan out, it’s going to be a short ride

40 45k or maybe even 80 depending how  I feel cuz that’s one of the reasons why I want to change things around just a few too  many pain issues right now and that, that’s not cool on the bike ah well let’s see what we can find today oh yeah that’s the view woohoo

beautiful so this is a [ __ ] part really someone drives by either fast or slow doesn’t really matter I have to step off the bike and then it’s very  very tough to gain momentum and uh not tip over if you start on the bike again so right another climb done

I don’t know how many  I’ve lined up because I actually I don’t know where I’m going today I was going away from the wind is the plan I just could get myself to cycle to Swansea today with a beaufort 5 headwind all day long

So I finally thought let’s use some common sense and head east there’s one town coming up um think I should be able to take lunch-  well actually coming up I say was 40K so it could still take me 2, 2 and a half hours to get there

Cuz I’ve only done 12 so far today um yeah and then from there we’ll see first see uh how far we can get today which is going to be interesting not knowing exactly where you end up so all right see you later well it’s not often that I decide to walk down a road

But with my rear brake in the state that it is in uh meaning that I can’t really trust it I definitely don’t want it to fail on me on this one so I’ll just walk down this 21.9% I measured at some point so let’s hope it gets better

Right it’s time for a little break and uh isn’t this the perfect spot for it? a nice Old Bridge, ah see if there’s a bench or something that would be nice all right see you in a bit I see a fence, which is not good news

Wow this is the first Bridal path in my life I think probably means I’ll have to go up there because, well why not? not on my map but well ,we’ll see at least I could get through this fence rather easily so that’s already a big plus all right let’s see what awaits

Well let’s hope this remains somewhat  ridable that would be nice I think this is where  they make milk chocolate? should be a nice road beautiful I that is a nice way to travel: nice and slow wow this is a lovely surprise, not only  is it flat but it’s so nice and green

And quiet one free tip for everybody if you go and cycle here make sure your brakes are in working order cuz blyme you’re going to need them Gofilon right cyclepath wow that’s nice so sick and tired of these systems why make it so complicated I don’t understand thank you

In terms of signposting, you can’t do much better now right I’m slowly walking  to the city center hopefully get some lunch and see what it  will do for the rest of the day might actually stay here if I can find  accommodation or take a train or well everything’s open see you later

Suppose, these are old castle grounds well short update: I am still at Abergavenny station as the train I was supposed to be on didn’t allow me completely packed I  think three trains before were cancelled and despite the fact I actually had a reserved space for my bike

I was not allowed on board so I’m now going to wait for an hour  for the next one um which also means that I will be not connecting to the next train so see let’s see how that pans out

Of course that makes me a bit reluctant to go ahead and  find a hotel in Bristol where I was supposed to to land tonight because I don’t know if  I actually can make it well interesting times so I’ll keep you posted well car the car is in one  piece

I have to dash to get to a hotel and hopefully some food cuz quarter past 9 already and even in France that’s late so see you later