The tetty-Trail is around 300 miles as a single loop so the camping trip 3 days circling back each day meant the mileage was going to be higher.
About half arrived Thursday evening, some got fish and chips in Laugharne but the latecomers got free chicken jalfreze from a random camper instead!
Friday 170m loop west started a bit late as we opted for breakfast at Pendine Sands, which is just a sprawling caravan park like Brean. The day was mostly roads via Pembroke castle, Milford Haven port
(looking remarkable Mediterranean) and up past Broad Haven beach for a quick lunch pasty. The route went north to Strumble Head lighthouse (5pm) and thence via Fishguard and back to base. The scenery was quite awesome with some mostlt grassy lanes, farm tracks & the odd gnarly lane from time to time. A thunderstorm just to throw a swerve ball at us just after Ian Davies managed to drop his bike on a corner by over enthusiastic use of the front brake but no real harm done other than aches and pains. The day was so long we had to call into Laugharne chip shop at 750pm for more enormous fish and chips eaten at the pub with a fee pints before even getting back to the campsite 930pm.
Of course beers were then drunk under the TRF gazebo but not for long as we were all quietly knackered!
Saturday was forecast to rain but other than a bit cloudy stayed dry. We opted for an earlier 830 start but breakfasted at Starbucks in St Clears which delayed us again. Today was a 160m harder (more lanes) day so I was frantically adjusting the route to miss out sections we were familiar with such as south of Llandovery. Mileage was expected to be more like 120m. The route had a lot more gnarly stuff but no great shakes. Lots of overgrown and clearly little used lanes.
Darren decided to ride the innocuous puddle on the forest track only to dive into a 4ft hole. Apparently the same one DA60 found on a recent Many-Brechfa ride out.
The late lunch pub stop (4pm) wasn't interested in providing pasties, sausage rolls or sandwiches for 18 & was a bit dismissive so I denied him 18 pints of beer!
Some of the party decided to call it a day and ride straight back to camp.
But we were probably getting a bit faint in the late afternoon and maybe concentration was waning.
At 530pm while crossing Dave's Bridge (new name), which was a nice sunken lane to a narrow footbridge accessed by 4 concrete steps on an angle. It took a committed attack to ride up the steps to between the angled bridge rails. Some did others had to walk it. One, who shall not be named (but could be known as Biscuit Limbs on account of the numerous times it seems to happen) fell off the step and rearranged his clavicle.
We had our 5th emergency service (Darren and Rich) come back from camp in their van to collect the now spare bike and leaving 3 to accompany the patient patient the others rode directly back to camp.
The ambulance took over an hour due to resource limitation and shortages but immediately followed by a police car just to check the bike was road legal. No lack of resource there then! Julian, Steve and I rode the main road back to camp in time to quicky get to Browns restaurant in the village for the 830pm table booking.
The prawn starter and steaks were most excellent. Definitely one of the best steaks I've eaten.
Some of the group drove home either Saturday night or Sunday morning but the remaining hard-core were up for yet another of my gruelling days. Actually it was a gentle 100 mile loop north to Castle Emlyn area and back. However this was the piece de l'resistance. Most of the lanes were excellent slippery and gnarly. We rode a disused rail track to the station for lunch. We were approached by the manager asking if we'd risen the track. Expecting a bollocking he actually said it was great that we were keeping it clear of vegetation! His wife (the real manager) also agreed. She was asking about how to interpret legal paths etc and it turns out shed encountered TRFs very own Jimmy Kawasaki (Wilts group) who impressed her with courtesy.
We passed a nice swimming location/ice cream stop at Cenarthand a great looking pub just after worth remembering for a future trip.
The TettyTrail is written as a continuous loop and my routes were based heavily on it but adapted to return to base camp on each of 3 sections and including lanes not on the Tetty Trail itself. I used OS maps to find them and the fledgling TRF s Green Road Map (GRM) to verify legality.
However several of the lanes shown on the GRM were totally impossible to find or had very old locked gates. Clearly never or very rarely used. Curiously some of the Tetty Trail lanes were also locked. Perhaps the new lease of life the TET has brought has pissed off the farmers!
I will raise these points with GRM & the TET linesman.
There are plenty more lanes shown on the GRM but I'm not sure how feasible they are given our experience this weekend.
However my Sunday route is a keeper. St Clears is just over 2 hours easy drive so is a contender for a day trip.
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