Last Friday I received an E-Mail from Lindsay suggesting a ride out one day over the weekend, the weather looking better for Saturday, though this changed throughout the weekend but the decision was made to meet up on Saturday at 9:00 am at Great Whitley. So early Saturday I downloaded a Ride mag route featured in AA Best Biker Routes of Britain called 'Brecon Loop'.
After a short delay waiting for Lindsay to turn up (evidently been downloading the ride route to his GPS via PC), we set off for Shobden Airfield and a Full English breakfast in the popular Hotspur Cafe. It was really busy today,usually we make a visit on a Sunday, but it seems Saturday is full of flight activity. Just managed to get a table and from where I sat could see the odd micro-light take off, and a few private plane flights too. A couple of nice Triumph Tiger 800XCX (Adventure) models were parked outside, if I wasn't so hooked on my GS I reckon I would be visiting a Triumph dealer and taking one for a test ride, very nice looking bike I have to say - right up my street.
After breakfast and a few mugs of teas we headed out toward Prestiegne and Kington to begin riding the Brecon Loop. I re-arranged the route direction to start further north in a reverse direction, the idea being to get to the Beacons first in case of bad weather, and I wasn't sure of Lindsay's plans for the day (he often returns home early to build another shed!).
It's been a while since I have ridden on wet roads, and on this early Autumn morning our route out was quite wet, but mild enough apart from cool on the hands, steady riding taking care on the bends. We had our intercoms connected and commented on the crops ready for harvest i.e. Apple orchards and Hops as we headed out via Painscastle, Erwood and Three Cocks. The GPS route took us right into the centre of Talgarth, a bit confusing but remembering we were running the route in reverse it all made sense in the end, obviously this AA route was designed to stop for lunch there - no good to us while still digesting that huge breakfast (burp!).
A clear view of the Brecons as we briefly took the A479 from Talgarth, this road is twisty enough but couldn't do it full justice in damper conditions, before leaving the 479 onto the B4560. We twisted around Llangorse Lake, coming off the main road for a while through wonderful scenery, before taking the B45760 on to the Heads of the Valleys road toward Merthyr - the TomTom taking us via a housing estate, for some reason there was a Waypoint in the middle of a place called Rassau, the lesson here is to check the way-points - even if the route is downloaded from Ride or the AA !!
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| Llangorse Lake |
The route now took us North-West up past Ponsticill and Talybont reservoirs. This was a fairly narrow B road, and was crowded with many runners coming in the other direction. It seemed we had chosen a road now in use for a Triathlon and had to take care, ride slow as they were coming down the valley on both sides of the road. With Lindsay following and on Intercom, I sensed a bit of frustration in his voice with the route I had chosen, the diversion around Rassau, and now these slow moving runners coming from all directions ahead of us.
After a nice twisty section through Talybont on Usk (following the River Usk), we stopped in Brecon Town, parking up on the path in the intersection before grabbing a drink at the Costa. Lindsay had quite an impressive 'Heart' placed in the froth on his coffee, perhaps the woman serving had a soft spot for him like the petrol station attendant in Leominster (more on that later).
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| Honddu River |
Later we took a nice river valley route up through LLandefaelog following the river Honddu where Lindsay questioned the route and felt my TomTom was leading us in the wrong direction however, I was confident of it's purpose and pointed out the route on my tank-bag map was taking us through Lower Chapel and Upper Chapel to Buith Wells and back to Three Cocks and on to Leominster via Whitney on Wye. No worries I say, stay calm mate!
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| Lindsay - still not trusting the GPS route ! |
The route home was only marred by a closed petrol station in Presteigne and my 50 mile warning flash up in Brecon. I banked on filling up in Builth or Prestiegne, but I guess settling for the latter was bad decision and Lindsay's comments were a clear sign he was getting irritated and stressed more than I about the situation, maybe because the mpg figures on his new V-Strom are superior to my GS, despite the GS giving a satisfactory 56 mpg.
I filled up in Leominster with a good 20 miles range, but unfortunately chose
the first AND LAST ever Morrisons supermarket petrol station I will ever use. I had heard of supermarkets expecting bikers to remove their helmets at the kiosk, but never experienced one before. I think this is intended as a security measure against robbers and thieves, but I object to being classed as a robber or thief just because I wear a helmet and ride a Motorcycle, ended up with a 'snotty' female attendant who rubbed me up the wrong way from the start, so until they make it an official Police state law to have me remove it, I will simply purchase my petrol elsewhere. I'm still kicking myself for not seeing their sign and jumping back on my bike and riding down to the old Bengry's garage near the traffic lights however I feared this would have upset Lindsay some more, so just as well I didn't as he didn't get accosted like I did for wearing a helmet. At least be consistent with your rules I say !
Bluetooth Intercom problem
While discussing over the BT Intercom headsets, Lindsay attempted an explanation of why when we travel faster, we start to lose comm's (or quality of comms is reduced). He came up with an explanation of why he thought this is the case where he felt that as we travelled faster, the signal could not reach each others headset in the same time-frame so we started getting drop-outs. I tried to explain that we communicate using a Bluetooth 'channel', where our voice is converted from Analogue signal to Digital signal and then applied to the 'channel' for transmission. The channel is kind of like a pipe (I used the hose-pipe analogy I was taught at Tech' College). This Pipe (Channel) would carry (by way of modulation) the voice data packets. Since we have a channel and modulation using radio frequency waves, both are travelling near the speed of light, and therefore our own travelling speed would not be the cause of the reduced quality. Here's a digram I drew in my head as an example of what I was trying to explain while on the move:
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| Bluetooth comms example |
Even though our two chaps in the diagram are moving, the 'hosepipe' should remain connected regardless of our speed. So what is the explanation for the loss in signal quality ? I don't know the answer for sure, but my guess is Engine interference (electrical noise) as the speed increases on one or both bikes. There is a lot going on while riding a motorcycle subject to interference, one really quality weak area are the headsets themselves as they are Analogue - both prone to interference feeding into the Analogue/Digital conversion process. Either way, an interesting conundrum nonetheless.
All in all, not a bad day out....just shy of 200 miles, though I do think my riding style does benefit these days from a more relaxed laid back mood.
Note to self: Try and avoid coming into contact with 'snotty/moody' people on a ride and all will be well with the world, ... oh and fill up when you can of course !!
Looking forward to seeking a ride out to another nature reserve soon!
