FOREST riders have turned in some great performances, with nine riders covering 160 miles in 12 hours and a club record time for 25 miles.

Rob Hussey led the Royal Dean Forest Cycling Club group on an epic tour of the Welsh countryside, which took them through the Brecon Beacons and up Gospel Pass and Devil’s Elbow.

Much to Rob’s surprise, nine cyclists made their way to The Fountain pub in Parkend for a 7am start on Sunday, April 2, ready for the 12-hour day in the saddle.

The route started off steadily, taking in some ‘pavé-style’ roads up to Hay-on-Wye.

After a stop there, the group headed towards Gospel Pass and on to Brecon for the second stop shortly after ascending Devil’s Elbow, then past the beautiful scenery of the reservoir section.

The penultimate climb of the day was at Llangynidr, which was difficult at that stage of the day with nearly 90 miles already in the legs.

A ‘through and off’ into Monmouth, after getting a bit lost in Abergavenny, brought the group back together before a final effort from Redbrook up to Clearwell.

Pulling into the car park at The Fountain just as the church bells chimed seven times meant the group had been ‘out’ for exactly 12 hours.

Coupled with nearly 4,000 metres of climbing, it was a hard day with more than 160 miles in the bag, and the whole group were suitably tired from the longest ride most of them had ever completed.

The same day, club rider David Bucknall took part in the Merthyr CC 25 finishing in a very respectable time of 51mins 03sec, a new club record for the distance with an average speed of just over 29 mph.

With the longer days now here, the club time trial events started yesterday, Tuesday, April 25, with a six-mile time trial around the roads near Cannop.

The event was a ‘come and try it’ time trial and was open to anyone who wanted to have a go.

Next Tuesday’s (May 2) event is a 10-mile time trial around Tintern, starting opposite the car park on the Wye Valley road at Brockweir, followed on Tuesday, May 9 by another 10-miler at Lydbrook.

See www.rdfcc.org.uk for more details.