The Trans Cambrian Way FKT.

I have wanted to ride the Trans Cambrian Way for the past few years, and for one reason or another it just never happened. Then, once a Fastest Known Time had been set for the route (and subsequently lowered on a number of occasions) I had my heart set on giving the women’s record a crack, but I kept putting it off.

I wasn’t fit enough, I was too busy, I didn’t have the confidence, the weather wasn’t right. I realised I could delay it forever, and come up with endless reasons why now was not the perfect time, but ultimately I just had to pick a day and go for it.

I’d ridden a few sections of the route before, and grew up in the area, so I had a good sense of how hard it would be. The landscape is breath-taking, wild and remote, and the terrain is as varied as it is savage.

With no real gauge of my current fitness level, and without having ridden it in its entirety before, I studied the route and made a rough plan to bring the women’s record under 12 hours, riding East-West from Knighton. If luck and good legs were on my side then that felt achievable, but certainly not easy.

Alarm set for a 4am wakeup, with the aim to beat the rain that was due to roll in during the afternoon, I hit the trails bright and early. I was motivated, excited to push myself, and felt completely relaxed about whatever was about to come.

I was going to give it my all, but record or no record I knew it would be an incredible day out on my bike. That’s a pretty good consolation prize.

After rolling over the first few shorter climbs and off-road stretches of the ride, I began the steep ascent up onto the long ridgeway above Knighton, and I was surprised to be feeling really strong. It was just me and my bike, as it so often is these days, and I was just having fun.

Pushing on along the rolling, rutted, opening hour of relatively tame terrain, I had begun the second longer uphill stretch when I discovered I could no longer change into an lower gear. My immediate thought was that I had snapped the gear cable, and the ride would be over before it had really begun, but after pulling on the lever with both hands I found I could still force it across.

Although this was a better situation, it certainly wasn’t a sustainable solution. It’s not like I could take both hands off the bars every time I needed an easier gear, especially not when on a steep, rough climb through the Cambrian Mountains.

The thought of picking a cog in the middle of the cassette and riding a single speed for the duration left my mind almost as quickly as it entered, so I climbed off and checked for an easy fix instead. Failing to find one, I pressed on and tried to come up with a solution on the move. Over the next couple of kilometres of riding, I worked out that if I changed down one gear first I could change up two in quick succession, so this is how I rode for the remaining 9 hours. Not ideal, but also not a disaster.

After settling back into a nice rhythm, the heavens opened and the torrential rain began. It was slightly more of a downpour than the weather forecast had predicted, and had hit early rather than late. With the ground bone dry from the recent heatwave, the trails quickly became more of a river.

This was fairly inconsequential on the flat and uphill, although not exactly pleasant, but it did mean taking it much easier on the descents and grassy sections. It’s not something I could control, so I just embraced it, happy to some extent that the worst of the weather had hit me early on in the ride. My legs and head were still fresh, and the run into Rhayader is one of the easier parts of the route.

I made sure to enjoy the sweeping road section through the town and onto the smooth bike path beyond, as this is one of the few stretches of tarmac on the entire ride.  Into the stunning Elan Valley, and onto a couple of steep, draining climbs, before transitioning back onto the rugged terrain towards the Claerwen Reservoir.

Instead of turning onto the beautifully smooth road to the reservoir, the route takes a parallel track. Known as the ‘sunken road’, this is rough, rocky, and largely underwater.

Arguably one of the least gravel bike appropriate parts of the route, I decided I was going to try and ride it all. I felt in control and I was confident any ‘spill’ would be minor, so I committed to pedalling the whole thing so I didn’t lose too much time. Although not the most comfortable, I was surprised that I really enjoyed this part, and got through it much quicker than expected.

After completing the first river crossing of the day, bike on my back, I began the climb up to the byway that runs alongside the reservoir.  Unfortunately this has recently been covered in a layer of loose flint in an attempt to fix potholes, but it has really just creating an awful, sharp, flinty surface throughout. A tyre’s worst enemy.

As I rolled onto it I knew it would be a miracle if I didn’t puncture, so it was entirely predictable that a few kilometres in I heard the dreaded hiss and looked down to see sealant spraying all over my legs. With some luck on my side, and helped by my tyre and sealant choice, it stopped leaking without any issue and lost virtually no pressure. Another drama dodged.

Popping back out onto road at the end of this long, beautiful, ride around the reservoir, there are just a couple of short climbs before reaching the top of this section. Rewarded with some of the most incredible views I have ever seen, the descent that follows is nothing short of breath-taking. Speeding down the empty, sweeping twists and turns, surrounded by mountains and seemingly endless countryside.

Nothing about the Trans Cambrian Way is easy, but there are these brief moments where you get to fly effortlessly through the stunning landscape and breathe it all in.

I had covered half the distance at this point, 85km ridden and 5.5 hours elapsed. In many ways the pacing got easier from here, ticking down towards the finish, but some of the hardest riding is also yet to come.

The next couple of hours are incredibly diverse in terms of both riding surfaces and gradients, and it’s tricky to establish any sort of rhythm or consistency. I leaned into this, and tried not to overthink the speed and intensity with which I was pedalling.

I usually try to avoid fire roads through forest plantations in my rides as I find them a little boring, but today they were a relief. A chance to cover some kilometres with relative ease.

At the other end of the spectrum, it’s difficult to pinpoint the hardest parts of a ride like this. It’s subjective of course, and depends what the criteria are. Having said that, the hardest part in terms of sheer power and endurance needed to keep moving forward for me was the steep climb out of the Cwmystwyth valley.

Turning onto what is a national cycle route, through a gate, the ‘road’ stretches out into the distance, rolling and weaving through the hillside. Although a small strip of tarmac remains up the middle, the rest has collapsed and crumbled.

From here it’s down a steep descent, through a bog, and into the forest. Another chance to relax a little and just tick off the distance, my body not being battered by the terrain.

One of very few stops, I filled my bottles from a ford here and took a minute to eat some solid food. The effort was starting to catch up with me, and at around 120kms I began to really feel the weight of the riding in my legs. Forcing me to focus much more on sustaining as high a pace as I could.

Each time I thought the ‘run in’ must be getting close, I appeared to be riding further into the wilderness. Briefly emerging onto tarmac every now and then, almost teasing how close civilisation was, before the route swung back off-road.

Into the next range of hills, climb after climb, the surroundings feeling increasingly remote once again.

The last real effort of the ride complete, up one final scrambly ascent, it was onto the only descent I had been warned about.  Foel Fadian is incredibly steep and covered in a deep layer of sharp slate. Opting to play it safe, and realistically losing almost no time as it would be slow going under wheel, I lifted my bike onto my back once more and ran down.

Turning from slate to grass, I remounted and began to push on harder as I counted down the final kilometres.  I mistakenly assumed it would be downhill all the way to the finish, and for some reason I also thought it would be on the road. I was of course wrong on both fronts. Brutal and beautiful to the very end, just what this route had promised.

One kilometre to go, onto the road, the Dovey Junction station came into sight. One last turn, one last gravel track, one final push.

It was done. I had done it. A new women’s record of 10 hours 41 minutes.

The ride wasn’t flawless, these things rarely are, but I also don’t care about that. Maybe I’ll go back one day and see if I can go even faster, and maybe I won’t.

The Trans Cambrian Way was more than I ever hoped it could be. Riding it as hard as I could was a joy, even when it wasn’t. I rode it happy, and I ended it happy.

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Molly Weaver