It's nearly 11pm on the first day of our round Wales epic road trip, and the MBWales.com crew are definitely feeling the effects of their early over enthusiasm.....
It's only about half an hour from
Nant yr Arian to
Machynlleth, but somewhere along the road the energy vampires attack. By the time we're through the town and rattling up to the trailhead in a cloud of thick dust any dynamic drive we had has died on it's arse.
Russ the photographer and Kieran our driver/crew chief aren't helping either as they dive straight into their sleeping bags while we're plug lights and head off up the long fireroad start, dust speckling the air in front of our spotlights.
Despite the fact it's the middle of the night, it's still sweltering (hard to believe given the recent weather I know) and with aching, shaking legs we're sweating cobs by the top. Leigh and Alex gulp down yet another energy gel, while Neil and I go for the Jelly baby option. There's no spare energy for banter though, just a determination to get the job done and get some sleep as soon as possible.
The first section of singletrack is closed too, which is a mixed blessing. It means a bit less distance to the finish, but right now we could really do with some fun to distract us from the fact our shoulders, hands and legs have gone numb and our calves are twitching and spasming with cramp as the trail kicks up again. Neil from Hope sums it all up beautifully with a muttered "I'm officially not having fun anymore."
He perks up noticeably on the first proper section of singletrack though, and I'm having a hard job keeping him in sight as light glare bounces back off the glistening slate and rock of the trail. Deep shadows could be drop offs, roots, rocks or just imaginary black holes our optical nerves are too slow to fill in. Whatever's coming next lean back and hope seems to be the best defense and we clatter, scatter, slide and skid down the rocky slots and snaking trails in the pitch blackness.
At the end of each singletrack section Neil pulls up first, then me - wide eyed with arm pumped exhaustion. Then long seconds of waiting before we hear Leigh or Alex cursing and clattering down towards us. Lights flickering and jinking off rocks and trees as we fight the effects of a few too many km of trails in one day. We're all absolutely knackered, but Alex from Gore is obviously suffering particularly badly from his early pace setting as he slumps silently over the bars at every stop.
Cli Mach X is one of the shorter trails on our trip but it seems to take forever until our disorientated, fried eyes finally recognise the main climb we'd crossed sometime ago the right side of midnight. That means we're on the final descent and a mix of relief and euphoria raises the pace as we fight to keep on the narrow ribbon of rocky, writhing trail. Pulses are hammering as we launch blind drops into blackness and flick the rear end round the tightest corners on automatic pilot honed from today's hours of constant riding.
Actually to be accurate it's already well into tomorrow as I pull up behind Neil, after the final big berms both of us grinning madly with bloodshot eyes. We count the seconds until the lights of Leigh and then Alex appear out of the blackness. They're both laughing though, happy to be alive - if totally, utterly knackered well beyond anything we've done before.
We wobble back to the vans and shout Russ awake for no other reason than we're damned if he should get any more sleep than we have. He lets out nothing mroe coherent than a gurgling grunt though and we can't blame him. A quick wet wipe round, a last bite to eat, a swill of water to chase gel, spit and grit from our teeth then we fall into a sleeping bag cocooned coma in seconds.
We're only halfway round in terms of trail distance and tomorrow is going to be a long, long day but there's no way we're going any further without a few hours kip.
Tune in next time for more tyre ripping, throat stripping, leg crippling epic action as our marathon morons get lost within minutes of starting the next trail and
Gwydyr forest proves to the biggest Welsh pain fest of all......