5th to 7th September 2025
Just myself went down to see Tom & Tuva in Cardiff, this weekend the Tour of Britain was finishing in Cardiff and it was Geraint Thomas’ last professional race so this trip ticked a lot of boxes!
It was Ted’s birthday so Gilly couldn’t make it so I set off Friday morning with gravel bike.
On the way I stopped at the village of Castle Coombe for a pit stop, lovely quaint Cotswold village but very popular with tourists. From here I drove straight to the Storey Arms car park to tackle Pen Y Fan.
Sun was out and it was a lovely walk, although quite steep in parts but not too technical. The walk was quite busy as there was a long-distance trail walk taking place. First stop was Corn Du, then a short walk to Pen Y Fan, from there I took a different route back to the car via the Tommy Jones obelisk.
Spent the evening with Tuva, Jordan, Billy and Jax as Tom was working. Tuva ordered us a Nandos which although tasty was cold and soggy!
Saturday morning myself and Tom drove to Pontypool to catch the start of the ToB Stage 5, timed it perfectly and saw them leaving the park. We then cycled along the canal park all the way to Abergavenny which was brilliant, so picturesque in the sunshine. We got off the path at LLanfoist and grabbed coffee at a garden centre. Tom was stressed about leaving the dogs and he cycled back to the car, I carried on up the Tumble climb to catch the tour, an epic climb and unbelieveably I was the only rider left on the climb and nobody had pulled me off, it was weird as here I was cycling through the barriers lined with thousands of people, 15 minutes ahead of the race. I was determined to get to the top but was pulled off 200 metres from the top!
I waited for the riders to go through which was great, but didn’t fancy hanging round for an hour so walked round the closed section and headed down the other side of the Tumble. This was then a fast ride back to Pontypool, from there I took another canal path back towards Newport where Tom picked me up in the car.
After showering we went to the supermarket for steak for dinner and watched the ToB highlights.
Sunday was wet, we both took some man up tablets and rode on trails to Caerphilly were stopped for coffee & cake right by the castle. Fully refuelled we then rode mainly on the roads to Wattsville where we caught the tour coming through. Had to laugh we passed through a village called ‘Wille’, even better we passed the ‘Willie Water Pumping Station’!
Once the tour passed through we cycled back to Cardiff via Newport, unfortunately this part of ride got very messy, we ended up on a dual carriageway which wasn’t pleasant and then tried to navigate using google maps and apple maps but it got very tricky and we made a few wrong turns and had to constantly stop to check the route. To top it all off I got a puncture but luckily this was a relatively quick changeover. We changed the route back slightly and got back to Toms place around 2:15, catching the finish on TV.
Tom had tickets to the after party, but it meant hanging around so I showered, loaded up and drove home. Apart from getting out of Cardiff it was a relatively straightforward drive back.
Great weekend and it’s a delight to spend some time with Tom.
