And so, we approached the final challenge of the day Pentre Hodre. I knew this was going to be one of the major climbing tests for a seventy-year-old cyclist and the bike which Lizzie named “Miss Ribble”. What I had not reckoned with was that this time round it would prove to be a navigational test as well. This navigational challenge manifested itself in two ways. Firstly, Scott got lost on the way from second lunch to the climb and Ollie had to go back in search of him. Secondly, I took a wrong turn half way up and seemed to end up finding the steepest route possible to the summit.
Scott and Ollie were somewhere behind me and nowhere near attempting the climb when I turned onto the dreaded hill. Lizzie and Adam were ahead of me. I managed the first steep section of the climb with consummate ease which was a great boost to my confidence. I could see Adam in front of me and was gradually gaining on him when I was ground to a halt by a woman in a car descending the hill who wasn’t going to give an inch or stop to let me pass. I was forced to the side of the road and came to an untimely halt. Some rather un clerical words were uttered as she passed me by at speed. Pity she couldn’t hear them. Consequently, I had a job getting going again as I was still on a steep part of the ascent but fortunately managed it. In the meantime, I had lost sight of Adam. I came to a fork in the road, didn’t notice the sign which pointed left to Pentre Hodre Farm and, as a consequence, went straight on. I kept climbing but realised after a while that I didn’t recognise anything on the road. I stopped and asked two people if I could get to Clun via the road I was on. Neither of them seemed to know where Clun was which struck me as rather strange as it couldn’t have been more than a few miles away.
Rather than go back and try and find the right turning, as the road was ascending and seemed to be nearing the summit, I decided to press on. This was a wise decision and I realised later that the route had taken me in a loop which eventually enabled me to re-join the actual route just before the summit. However, the last few hundred yards before the summit the road really kicked up and I was struggling as was the motor on my e bike. Every time my foot passed the motor, I could feel the heat coming off it and was worried that it might well seize up. In order to alleviate this, I wove from one side of the road to the other to lessen the gradient. The road was very narrow and unfortunately, I hit the bank and once again ground to a halt and was faced with a standing start. After a considerable struggle I managed to get going again. This part of the climb was very steep, in fact steeper than the route I should have been on. Just as the top on the ascent hove into view and I was about to join the prescribed route, I saw Lizzie just in front of me. This was something of a relief as I was now confident that I was once more on the right road. I caught her up and we rode together to the view point at the top of Pentre Hodre. The intention was to wait for Scott and Ollie.
After various phone calls we found the Adam had already made it to the pub in Clun, Ollie had found Scott and was doing the climb. Lizzie and I were getting extremely cold as we waited and so it was decided that we would descend to Clun and met up with Adam, Julia, Mary and a couple of former parishioners who had retired to Clun. Eventually Ollie and Scott arrived and we all had a drink together before ending up at the Youth Hostel for a little bike maintenance and a well-earned pasta meal.
Ezekiel's Wheels 