Wind, rain, and terrorism on a Victory Vision

The original plan was to ride to EICMA on a Victory Gunner. I had come up with the idea in summer, imagining French back roads and Alpine passes.

When I get in touch with Victory's PR team in the UK, however, they gently point out the flaws in my thinking: EICMA takes place in mid November and I've given myself very little time to get there. Which means spending time on the motorway (aka freeway/interstate).

"You can do what you want, mate," says Victory UK's PR man, Steve. "I can get you a Gunner, no problem. But, well, have you ridden here in November?"

I have. Britain is terrible this time of year. Incessant rain and gale-force winds. The sun disappears until March. When Steve offers a Victory Vision as an alternative, I say yes before he finishes the suggestion.

The Vision is Victory's top-of-the-line tourer, happy to be brought up against the likes of the Indian Roadmaster, or Harley-Davidson Electra Glide. Relatively unchanged since being introduced in 2008, it maintains a contemporary look that puts it on the same aesthetic stage as the Honda Goldwing.

Twenty-nine gallons (132 liters) of storage space, full fairing, electronically adjustable screen, heated grips, heated seats, cruise control and stereo. All powered by a ginormous 1731 cc (106 cu. in.) V-twin. Yeah, that's the way to travel to Milan.

I pick up the bike in London and ride it back to Cardiff (where I live) to load its panniers and top box before heading out the next day. At first glance, the sheer enormity of the Vision intimidates me. Everything is big on this bike. Fairing the size of a Smart car, handlebars like the horns of a Texas steer, a seat large enough to accommodate an adult male polar bear.

Everything is big except the handlebar-mounted radio and cruise control buttons. They are too tiny for gloved hands. With the stereo, at least, there are additional controls on the bike's acre-sized tank. But those controls are out of my line of sight. So, there is a lot of haphazard mashing of buttons. Eventually, the radio comes to life and –– this really happened –– blares Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild"...

Click here to keep reading "Wind, rain, and terrorism on a Victory Vision" on RideApart.

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Europe 2015 pt. VI: Penarth to the Black Forest

If you haven't already seen from my Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or G+ feeds, RideApart has published the first part of my road trip to Italy.

I have visions of one day going back and writing up an extended version of the whole trip, but, honestly that sort of thing might bore you to tears. There are times when the editorial confines of professional writing are of benefit to the reader.

I'm working on a second part at the moment and that will be published on RideApart soon. As is always the case when I link to stories I've written on RideApart, if you have any comments please make them there. That way the site editors will be duped into thinking I'm brilliant and that I'm worth what they pay me.

ADSENSE HERE

GWTTA: Porthcawl

It's 9 a.m. and I am riding down the main road of Porthcawl on a sunny, crisp winter morning. Already, there are people walking the promenade. Outside the beachfront cafe, old ladies in decades-old winter jackets hawkishly stake out places to sit while their husbands stand in queue for milky tea and dry cakes. And in this I find myself strangely reminded of another town, some 6,000 miles away: Julian, California.

Not because Porthcawl and Julian are in any way alike. Julian is nestled in the Laguna Mountains of Southern California, whereas Porthcawl sits on the southern Welsh coast. Julian maintains a classic Americana small town feel, with a number of wooden buildings dating back to the 1860s. Porthcawl is worn and piecemeal, its architecture reflecting decades of failed attempts to make it into something more than it will ever be.

The similarity comes simply in the fact that, in both cases, just about every person from the surrounding area insists you should go there. And when you get there you are suddenly confronted with the inherent flaw in crowdsourcing for advice. Because, see, if just about every person you meet tells you that you should visit this or that town, the odds are extremely high they've told other people the same thing.

Julian and Porthcawl are sold to newcomers and visitors alike as quaint and charming. And conceivably they could be were it not for the fact that everyone and their uncle –– and their uncle's uncle –– has come in search of that quaintness and charm. So, your main impression is instead of a place so overcrowded that every fibre in your being aches to get away from it. Its beauty is all but lost to the fact you are trying not to get run over by confused drivers as they dart for parking spaces. You are trying not to run over their children as they leap from cars into the road. You are trying not to kill their grandparents, who have apparently reached the age where they no longer know how to cross a road.

Pictures you take of the town will include all of these people, no matter how hard you try to frame them out of shot. If you stand still long enough, these people will literally walk into you. Because the bustle is all just a little too much for them, as well, and they've lost basic spatial awareness. 

Porthcawl seafront. The businesses on this end were shut, so it was less busy.

I have of late been trying to follow the riding advice of Gary France: "I like to ride my favourite roads very early in the morning, while others wanting to ride it are still in bed."

I suppose 9 a.m. isn't "very early", but in the dead of winter it feels early enough. The sun has only been up for an hour at this point, and I have spent that last hour meandering my way across the Vale of Glamorgan from my own seaside town, Penarth, which is about 25 miles east along the coast.

The VOG is a damned lovely place to ride if you time it right. The A48 stretches the width of its 129 square miles, but even that is relatively relaxed thanks to the fact it runs parallel to the presumed-to-be-faster M4. Almost all other routes in the borough are B road and country lane, most of it relatively well-maintained and affording the sort of broad sightlines on corners that I prefer.

Its close proximity to the major urban centres of South Wales means you can encounter a fair few impatient and inattentive drivers during commuting times. But on a winter Sunday morning all is calm. The fields are so heavily covered in frost it looks like snow. Here and there, patches of black ice glisten in the unusually bright sun.

I have arrived at Porthcawl via an indirect and gentle route. After all, slow = warm. With my heated grips cranked to 100 percent I am able to keep feeling in my hands.

The approach to the Porthcawl seafront is an unspectacular series of roundabouts and poorly labelled roads that leave you feeling as though you've accidentally turned yourself in a full circle, but I keep following signs to the beach and eventually know I'm on the right track when I pass the sign famously warning drivers to keep an eye out for individuals riding giant ducks.

Caution: People riding ducks

That the seafront is crowded causes me to suffer a classic Chris moment of crippling indecision. Assuming the streets and pavements would be empty at this time of day, I had planned to ride my bike onto the promenade and take artsy photos. Or, well, as artsy as one can achieve with a Nexus 4 (Jenn has promised to get me a real camera for my birthday). But with the pedestrian walkway buzzing, and the winter chill forcing an aggressive determination into people's gait, it seems quite possible that riding my bike onto the pavement now would result in my knocking someone down or, at the very least, getting a stern talking to.

Especially if I park up anywhere near the beachside cafe. The people sat outside it wear a look of belligerence that suggests they could not be moved even with artillery fire. I am reminded of an observation my friend, Chris Phin, once made of efforts by residents of Edinburgh to mimic a hip, Southern Europe lifestyle despite the realities of the Scottish climate: "They're all sitting at these outdoor cafes, turning blue, with a look on their faces that's like: 'I will sip this fucking latte and smoke these fucking designer cigarettes if it fucking kills me.'"

The cafes in Porthcawl are not hip, nor their clientèle, but the spirit is the same. They are trying to imagine themselves as being somewhere else. Like almost all British seaside towns, Porthcawl has at least two abandoned hotels and a crumbling concert venue advertising a DJ Spoony gig from about 5 years ago. 

It is the cycle of British seaside towns that the country will get two good summers in a row, so some have-a-go investor will set up a cheaper, half-assed version of a thing he saw while on holiday in Spain, telling himself: "This'll really pack 'em in." Then the reality of British non-summer will return for several seasons; the business will decay, flounder and shut. The cycle repeats every 7-10 years.

It's hard to tell where Porthcawl is in its cycle. Enough people come from the nearby area to keep the cafes busy on sunny days, but no one stays overnight. Well, usually, no one does.

The town's main claim to fame is that it is home to an annual Elvis Festival, which sees literally thousands of Elvis impersonators and tribute acts pour into the town for a few days each September. I've found no particularly good explanation as to why this happens: why it got started, why an Elvis Festival takes place in Porthcawl. If you ask locals, it's clear they've given it no thought: "I don't know, to be honest. He had some sort of Welsh connection, didn't he? A grandmother or an aunt, like."

This hardly seems like a viable reason to me, but then, local newspapers regularly report anything and everything about Australian pop star Kylie Minogue because her mother was from Maesteg.

Like almost every place along the South Wales coast that isn't a cliff, Porthcawl once served as a coal port during the Industrial Revolution. There are thankfully little signs of that today. Indeed, there is little sign of anything that would employ a person outside of the day-tourist trade. To that end, the bulk of Porthcawl's residents are retirees or commuters.

Just to the north (or west, depending on how you think about it) of the town's main seafront area lies Rest Bay, which is apparently renown among local surfers. I know this because there are always surfers there, regardless of conditions -- which are frequently atrocious. I suspect surfing in Wales is something akin to religious self-flagellation: the serenity of it comes through pain.

Looking over Rest Bay. I had to crop several people out of this photo.

I park my bike overlooking the beach. On a rare warm and sunny summer day, it would be crowded with literally thousands of people. Today, just a few hearty souls wander the coastline, throwing balls to their dogs or kicking at stones. In the water, a handful of fully wet-suited learning surfers try and fail to stay upright against the cutting winter winds.

From here I can see clearly across the Bristol Channel to the Exmoor coast of Somerset and Devon. Each time I'm afforded a view like this I am reminded of a story Jenn told me once of her mother, from the days when Jenn was attending Cardiff University. When her parents would drive up from Devon to visit, her mother would phone as soon as the road afforded them a view of the coast.

"I can see you," she'd say. "I can see Wales."

With U.S. shores so impossibly out of view, I have partially adopted Jenn's home county as my own. From here I can see Devon and I feel vaguely homesick. In a content sort of way. In Wales, they call this feeling "hiraeth."

I am still wearing my helmet because it helps keep my head warm, but it is only after I stomp some 150 metres across a field to a public restroom and stand there at the urinal do I realise how odd I must look. Coming out of the toilet I pull off the helmet and, out of habit, my gloves. By the time I get back to my bike, my fingers and ears are stinging with cold.

I fire up the bike, turn the heated grips to 100 percent and slip my gloves over them for heat. Then I crouch down to hide from the wind and and place my bare hands on the crankcase. Honda efficiency and winter cold mean it is only warm.

The bike, I see from this close vantage point, is filthy. Salt and sand and manure from the road is caked on the bike's exhaust pipes. I decide that I need to get home and spend my afternoon cleaning off the crap picked up in the morning's ride. But first I will spend another hour or two drifting through the VOG's lanes.

I loop back through the seafront area as I leave Porthcawl. I stop at a crosswalk to allow an a middle-aged woman to cross the road. When she is directly in front of me, she pushes back her windblown hair and says: "Lovely day for it."

Then I am off and moving away from the place that everyone will tell you to go to.

Winter muck

____________

This visit to Porthcawl was part of the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure, my attempt to fall in love with Wales again through visiting some 66 places listed on a tea-towel-based map.

ADSENSE HERE

Andiamo in Italia

I don't know if you've ever noticed the little sidebar box on the right-hand side of this blog that says "Lifetime miles." It's not totally accurate. It doesn't account for any of the miles I've done on test rides, nor the miles I covered during the arduous and expensive European training process, nor even the roughly 130 miles I racked up when the lovely people at Michelin gave me a bike to play on for a day. But I figure it's close enough. 

Considering that I only earned my European license about 18 months ago, I suppose it's a decent number. Elspeth Beard clocked up roughly 10,000 miles in her first two years of motorcycle ownership and I'm on track to keep pace with her (a), but still I find the number sometimes taunts me. It's not large enough; I haven't been nearly enough places; I haven't seen nearly enough things.

The Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure is, in part, an attempt to rectify that, but it looks as if this summer I'll get a chance to really get some miles under my belt. The family of my wife's best friend has invited us to spend a week in Italy with them in July. They have a villa in Volterra, in the Tuscany region, and Jenn suggested I take the opportunity to ride my bike there (b).

She didn't need to make the suggestion twice. Within seconds of her mentioning it I was researching possible routes on Google Maps. In doing so, I discovered that one possible route runs past the German city of Saarbrücken, where my friend, the mighty Chris James, lives these days. So, I've tentatively invited myself out to visit him as part of this trip. I really should drop him a line and let him know I'm coming...

Roundtrip, this adventure will see me riding some 2,500 miles and visiting at least six countries: France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. If I choose to avoid the notoriously expensive French toll roads on the way down, I may also venture into Austria, though that would mean missing out on the opportunity to ride through the 10-mile-long Gotthard Tunnel. Either way, my route will take me through three completely different eco zones and terrain ranging from flat coastal plain to the Alps. Great googly moogly, y'all: the Alps. My breath stutters just at the thought of it (c).

More rides through the Welsh mountains will be called for.

And that's the thing. This trip is so big, so grand in vision, that I struggle to properly grasp it in my mind. And with that comes the difficulty of figuring out how in the world I'm supposed to prepare for such a thing. I mean, where do you even start? I guess it might be handy to know how to say a few things in French, German, and Italian. And I suppose I might want to invest in a good-quality map, but where after that?

I am very seriously considering forking out the cash to equip my bike with hard, lockable luggage. I am also inclined to believe it might be a good idea to get myself an up to date and more reliable sat-nav programmed with full European maps (my current not-always-functioning sat-nav covers just the UK and Ireland). I'll be sure to have the bike checked out by a mechanic before I go, of course. And I'll pack an emergency tire repair kit, my Haynes manual, necessary tools, and will spend the next few months trying to teach myself how to do roadside fixes of the most likely issues one might face (cables, levers, chain, etc.).

Additionally, I'll spend these next few months seeking out the more challenging nearby roads (thankfully, we have plenty of those in Wales) to build up my skill level, and I may do a few runs criss-crossing the width of the UK in a day to help me improve stamina for long days. I'll make sure I'm familiar with the Iron Butt Association's Archive of Wisdom. I'll try to figure out how the hell to secure a bike when it's on a ferry. And so on.

But even with all of this, I get a twinge of fear –– a feeling that when it comes time to point the Honda toward Italia, I will be woefully unready.

So, I'm keen to hear what advice you can offer. If you've got experience covering massive distances, I'd love to hear what tips you might have for making it enjoyable. If you've ridden through multiple countries whose languages you do not speak, I'd definitely like to get your input.

I've got about seven months to prepare. Already I'm finding it difficult to sleep.

Stelvio mountain pass in the Alps.

––––––––––––––––––––

(a) If you haven't guessed, I have something of a crush on Elspeth Beard.

(b) She's planning to go in a car with her friend. My bike is simply not passenger-friendly enough to be stuck on the back of it over such a long distance.

(c) If I can build up the guts to do so, I may even tackle the infamous Stelvio Pass.

ADSENSE HERE

GWTTA: Kidwelly (Cydweli)

Before I came to Kidwelly the only thing I knew about it was that it's the home town of Ray Gravell. The fact this is not mentioned on Kidwelly's Wikipedia page is a travesty.

It's quite possible you've never heard of Ray Gravell, but suffice to say he was one of the Welshiest Welshman that ever Welshed. A hard-hitting rugby player who was part of the Llanelli RFC side that beat New Zealand on the Day the Pubs Ran Dry (a) –– 31 October 1972 –– he was also a nationalistic Welsh speaker who served as sword bearer for the Gorsedd y Beirdd.

Oh hell yeah, we're going down the rabbit hole on this trip, y'all.

In Wales, there is a pseudo-religious group of Welsh-language sycophants known as the Gorsedd y Beirdd. There's not a particularly good translation for the word "gorsedd" so let's just use "posse." Meanwhile, "beirdd" is equally difficult to translate –– especially in this context. But basically it is the plural of "bardd" or "bard" in English, which is a word English speakers use to describe writer types (most famously William Shakespeare) and a New York college that Steely Dan hated so much they wrote a song about it.

So, anyway, this Welsh Bard's Posse was dreamed up in the 1700s by a guy who was whacked out on opium, but now people take it really seriously. If I'm not mistaken, my two university degrees in Welsh mean that I am, by default, a member of the Gorsedd y Beirdd. But I have never bothered to get dressed up in green tablecloth and chant with the rest of them. 

Ray Gravell did, though he was given white robes because his ability to run straight into people at speed made him more important than me. He was so important they gave him the super-mega special job of carrying around the Cleddyf Mawr. Literally translated as "The Big Sword," the Cleddyf Mawr is a 7-foot sword that its keeper holds over his head during the opening of the Gorsedd's biggest annual event: Eisteddfod.

So, yeah, that's what Gravell did. He also got drunk on television, commented on rugby matches, sold cars, and cried any time someone played "Yma o Hyd." He died in 2007 but Welsh separatists still wear T-shirts with his face on them.

Viewing Kidwelly from a window in Kidwelly Castle

Meanwhile, his car business thrives to this day, and if a person in Wales drives a Renault purchased at Gravells (replete with Gravells bumper sticker in rear window) it is effectively the same as flying a 70-foot banner banner that says: "I AM WELSH AND I AM REALLY, REALLY PROUD OF IT."

And he was from Kidwelly. He mentioned this fact at any and every opportunity. Like Kathie Lee needs Regis, like Kanye needs Jesus –– that's how our Grav felt toward Kidwelly. That the town fails to capitalise on that deep love is, as I say, a travesty.

According to the (n)ever-reliable Google Maps, Kidwelly is just 1 hour and 23 minutes from Penarth, but I chose to get here avoiding the motorway. Such a move was, admittedly, questionable. Not only did it more than double my journey time it also resulted in my having to roll slowly through a slough of undesirable Welsh valleys towns. Places with names that sound like Victorian diseases: Pyle, Margam, Baglan, Skewen.

Oh, aye, poor Tommy were working the coal pits only a fortnight afore he come down with the Margam –– he were dead within two days after that.

South Wales is the land of the bedsheet birthday wishes. At roundabouts and strapped precariously to railway bridges you'll see grandma's unwanted linen adorned with proclamation of landmark birthdays ("HAPPY 30TH GEMMA!"). This sort of thing is exemplary of how uncouth people of the South Wales Valleys can sometimes be. They think it's a good idea to make signs out of bedsheets. They think that a person would want to be celebrated in such a way; no doubt they hope to be celebrated in the same way themselves.

And because this is Wales, it is more often than not the case that these goodwill messages are illegible, the rain having caused paint to run.

Kidwelly lies on the River Gwendraeth, which stretches quickly into the Bristol Channel.

Eventually, though, I made my way past the grime and stench of these towns to the incongruence of Swansea's streets and thereafter into the best part of Wales: the west.

West Wales is the most attractive part of the country and its residents are, in my opinion, generally the most likeable. I admire the ridiculous Texan-like pride they have in their region; I enjoy the broad, growling way in which they speak Welsh; and I love their sense of humour that is at once self-effacing and unafraid. But, oh, are they annoying drivers.

In West Wales there seems to be just one speed: 40 mph. The people there drive too fast through towns and too slow through the country. Fortunately, with a little bit of throttle wind up, the Honda could easily launch past when gaps made themselves available. Then I was free to enjoy sweeping curved roads with good sight lines and decent surface –– until closing in on yet another crawling Renault.

Kidwelly itself is like a lot of West Wales towns in the sense that you imagine it would be lovely to live there but if you really imagine actually living there you realise you're happy that you don't. Especially if you roll into town on a Sunday in the winter; there is nothing to do. Nothing. Not a thing. These places live for the summer and its tourists.

I'm not entirely sure what the place lived for before tourists started showing up. Tin, probably. That's the story of huge swathes of Wales: the industrial revolution saw the ore and natural resources of Wales building up the rest of the world. Then the rest of the world decided it was cheaper to get their raw materials from places that didn't have labour unions, and the whole country fell into decline.

Kidwelly Castle

Before the industrial revolution, the town served as a strategically important location for numerous folks. The Normans established a castle in 1106. About 200 years later, Edward I ("Longshanks" for those of you who've watched Braveheart) fortified said castle amid his successful efforts to crush Welsh resistance. Another few centuries after that, it played a role in Owain Glyndwr's failed revolution.

I visited the castle and had the place pretty much to myself. It's in good condition, considering it is more than twice the age of my home country, and has lots of mysterious, narrow stairwells to wander through.

Many years ago, I watched an S4C documentary about Ray Gravell in which he stood atop of one of the castle's towers and started weeping because he loved Wales so much. Climbing up to that very same vantage point and looking out, I could understand how one might get emotional.

Just below your feet lie the town's higgledy-piggledy medieval lanes, then a handful of more modern houses that blight the eye, and beyond them a broad river delta that spills into the bits of the Bristol Channel as it becomes the Celtic Sea. On the whole, the view is almost cinematic.

The wind here is seemingly always fresh and clean. I gulped in deep breaths of the stuff, as if somehow able to store it in my lungs to enjoy back in Cardiff.

"Well done, God," I said aloud. "Excellent work."

I stood at the top of that tower until I started to chill and it occurred to me the sun was soon going to set. All the roads surrounding Kidwelly are hard to navigate in the dark if you're unfamiliar with them (b). I hummed a verse of "Yma o Hyd" in honour of Grav and scrambled my way back down to my bike.

I fired up the Honda and cranked my heated grips to 100 percent, then shoved my gloves over them to gather warmth as I did up my jacket, fussed endlessly with the two scarves I wear, and strapped on my helmet.

I sent a text to Jenn to let her know I was on my way, pointed the bike to the nearest motorway and flew home.

Narrow road leading to Kidwelly Castle

____________________

(a) For those of you playing along at home, this was a huge moment in Wales' cultural history –– on par with Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, or the Berlin Wall being torn down. Rugby has long been incredibly important here, and the Wales national rugby team hasn't beaten New Zealand since 1953. The fact that a regional team managed to do it turned those players into demi-gods.

(b) Well, actually all the roads in Wales are hard to navigate at all times of day –– but outside of the cities they are even more baffling at night.

ADSENSE HERE

GWTTA: Monmouth (Trefynwy)

Let's call the visit to Monmouth a learning experience. 

I learned, for instance, that I should probably do a little research on the places I visit as part of the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure before going to them (a). Otherwise I'll arrive at said place with no idea of what might be there.

Additionally, I learned I should not attempt to explore a place when I haven't eaten. Being hungry makes me incomparably stupid and indecisive. Which, of course, isn't a good thing to be when you don't know what you're doing.

These two issues came to a head when I had the experience of also learning that the Waitrose in Monmouth doesn't have a cafe.

For those of you playing along at home, Waitrose is chain of high-end grocery stores in the United Kingdom. Often they have cafes. Or so I thought.

Monnow Bridge

I had ridden through Monmouth once or twice in the past and noted the existence of aforementioned Waitrose, so my plan had been to arrive, eat at aforementioned cafe and thereafter take a leisurely stroll through aforementioned town to see what I could see. But, as I said afore, the Monmouth Waitrose is sans cafe.

Because I had not arrived with a back-up plan, because I was feeling a little flustered from my ride here, and because I was being made stupid by hunger, I was not able to respond to this minor setback and simply choose somewhere else to eat. There are literally dozens of cafes, pubs and restaurants in Monmouth but in the face of them I became so indecisive that all I was able to do was walk around getting more and more upset at my inability to decide where to eat.

"Oh moan, that place looks a little too pricey. Woe is me, eating in this place might leave me too full for dinner tonight. Sorrow, with all my motorcycle gear I'd draw too much attention in there. Fie, this place looks so nice I'll want to spend the rest of the day in here. Distress, If I go in there I'll want a pint, too, but I have to ride home..."

In the end, I just chose to not eat. This in itself was a learning experience. From it I learned that if I spend all day riding around in the cold, having eaten nothing but two pieces of toast in the morning, I will end up getting a fever blister the next day and feeling awful for the next two weeks.

Monmouth Castle

All in all, I would say my visit to Monmouth was something of a bust. I was flustered and hungry and I failed to deal with it properly.

I was feeling flustered partially because my visit to Monmouth came on the same day I had visited Caerleon –– the two towns only being a few miles apart –– and that hadn't gone terribly well. But also because it was on the ride to Monmouth I learned I shouldn't rely solely on my sat-nav (known as a GPS in America-land) to get to a place. I mean, yeesh, everyone knows that. But especially my sat-nav.

Mine is a hand-me-down Tom-Tom given to me for free because its previous owner was convinced she couldn't trust it. I learned on my Monmouth adventure that I can't really trust it either. Especially not its battery, When I stopped in the middle of nowhere to click on the device, its battery was dead. I have since found that some sort of fault in the sat-nav (probably as a result of its being in my bag that time I got soaked en route to Exeter) causes it to take more than 48 hours to charge fully.

I'm going to need to come up with a solution to my sat-nav issue as I go forward with the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure. Navigation can be damned tricky in Land of Song. Physical maps are hard to use on a motorcycle anyway, of course, but also it can be extra difficult to find maps that even bother to include the small country lanes that are requisite to getting places in Wales.

Getting lost en route to Monmouth.

Meanwhile, outside of Cardiff and Swansea, phone signal is weak at best and sometimes non-existent, so navigating via Google Maps is ill-advised (not to mention it saps battery that will be needed to phone for help if your bike breaks down). But, for that matter, sat-navs, too, struggle to keep tabs as you wind through narrow valleys. My friend, Sian, was born and raised in Wales but lives now in London. She told me she often gets lost when she returns home. In trying to give me directions to the town where her wedding was held she said: "Head west and follow your heart."

Which is more or less what I did when getting from Caerleon to Monmouth (though, I was headed north and east).

There is a pretty straight-forward 70-mph route I could have taken, but that would have been boring. I wanted instead to make my way through the undulating country lanes that lie between the two towns. With my sat-nav dead, I studied an overview map of the area on my phone, memorised the names of a few towns I would pass, and set out –– planning to use road signs as a guide.

The phrase "road sign" is a misleading one when it comes to finding your way in the Welsh countryside. There are, indeed, signs by the road but often they were not designed for motorists. In these country lanes the signs can be upward of 200 years old, intended for the eyes of people moving at a far slower pace.

Random shop in Monmouth

If you've ever read PG Wodehouse novels, he frequently references the challenges of driving in the 1920s, literally having to stop and get out of the car to read a road sign. These are the sort of signs that were guiding me to Monmouth. And the route they prescribed was one that saw me bumping down lanes so narrow I could stretch out both my arms and touch the hedges on either side.

These lanes were pockmarked, crumbling, and caked with mud, livestock manure and, in some darker corners, algae. It is in situations like this that I am thankful I do not own an expensive motorcycle. As I rode along, I found myself remembering the claims made by the Michelin guys when they wined and dined me a few months ago. Pilot Road 4 tires have improved grip on every surface but snow, they said.

But "improved" doesn't necessarily mean "good." Not when tackling the literal and metaphorical crap found on a Welsh lane. I had several bum-clenching moments of having the rear tire kick out on me as I crept down the lanes. Fortunately, I encountered almost no other traffic on these roads (everyone else being smart enough to avoid them, I suppose) and was able to move at a snail's pace.

Eventually, I was rewarded for my efforts. I stopped on the rise of a hill, alone in the green, tranquil quiet of the countryside. I shut off my bike and was overwhelmed by the silence, the peacefulness. It felt otherworldly. Normally you just don't find this sort of thing in Britain. Everyone is so aggressive, so impatient and so crowded around each other on this little archipelago that when it all finally stops, when you can take a breath and actually hear the sound of fresh air filling your lungs, the experience kicks you in the stomach.

This was intensified by the views I had of the mountains to the north of me. I sat there for several minutes, listening to my breathing, the birds and faraway sheep. I didn't really think it at the time but it occurs to me now that this is the point of the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure; this sort of thing is why I moved to Wales.

Statue of Charles Rolls upstaging statue of Henry V

Eventually, I fired up the bike again and bounced my way down to Monmouth. It is a nice town, far more English in its quaintness than most Welsh towns and villages. That makes sense, as it is quite close to the English border.

Thanks to a statue in the town centre, I learned it is also the birthplace of one of the most iconic Englishmen ever: Henry V. You know, the fella of, "Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George," fame. You can't get more English than that, lads. Especially considering the fact that before becoming king, Henry V cut his warring teeth by defeating and humiliating one of Wales' greatest cultural heroes: Owain Glyndwr.

Far more recently, Monmouth was home to equally iconic Englishman Charles Rolls, of Rolls-Royce fame, and in present day it is home to a whole lot of people who don't speak a word of Welsh. In part because of all of these things, the town is often dismissed by hardcore Welshies. And this speaks to something else that I sense will become a theme throughout the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure: often, the things I like most about Wales are, in fact, quite English in nature.

I didn't bother to ponder this at the time, however. I was hungry. After a quick visit to the crumbling remains of Monmouth Castle (built by the English to help them invade Wales) and a stroll through the town's older streets I headed back to my bike and sped home to dinner. It had been a positive learning experience, even if I was still pretty ignorant about Monmouth.

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(a) If you've got any insider knowledge about the places I'm planning to visit, please clue me in.

ADSENSE HERE

GWTTA: Caerleon (Caerllion)

This is the second stop on the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure. Remember that this whole thing is a work in progress, so if you happen to know anything about the towns, villages and cities I'm planning to visit, don't wait until after the fact to tell me what I should have done -- give me your suggestions on what to see, what to do, where to eat, when to visit, etc. Thanks!

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Caerleon –– according to the tourism officials at Caerleon –– was once one of the most important places in Britain. It was home to a large Roman fortress and thereafter the setting for a number of Arthurian legends.

Yeah. Bet you didn't know King Arthur was Welsh, did you? He was. He gets mentioned a lot in the Mabinogi, a collection of folk tales that has somewhat biblical status in Wales. And even before then he was being linked with Caerleon. Some versions of his tale say he came from there and others claim simply that he held court there.

Somehow, however, Caerleon's prestigious beginnings didn't translate well beyond the Middle Ages. These days it is little more than a quaint suburb of Newport where visitors may find themselves somewhat challenged to find anything worth taking a picture of.

That said, it is somewhat exemplary of Wales. There is was a castle. There are Roman ruins. And the people of the town don't really seem to give a damn about either. That is such a Welsh thing. You have history falling out of your ears and you just don't give a fuck. These days all that's left of the castle is a crumbling bit of tower next to a pub, and the Roman ruins are crowded by rugby pitches and a school.

There is also evidence that Caerleon may be the home of the Mari Llwyd tradition, which is the most Welsh thing ever. It involves singing a bunch of boring songs and waving about a horse's skull for reasons no one understands until you either get bored or people bribe you to go away.

Huge chunks of Welsh folk tradition, song, dance, food and storytelling were obliterated forever by the unrelenting no-funness of puritanism and thereafter Methodism in Wales (a). The Mari Llwyd is one of the very, very few things to have survived long enough for us to even know it existed. But, of course, no one in Caeleon cares.

Remains of Roman amphitheatre

I used to teach Welsh at the school that overlooks the Roman ruins. That is, I taught night classes there. Getting students to show up was a challenge. Eventually, my class was reduced to just two regular attendees. Often no one would show up for classes at all. In a trick I learned from reading Mihangel Morgan novels (b), I took to marking absent students as present so the council wouldn't cancel my class and put me out of a job.

I didn't have a car or motorbike in those days, and getting to Caerleon was always an unreasonably arduous process due to the infrequency of buses. So, I'll admit that Caerleon instils in me a kind of sadness, a "Is this all there is?"-ness. This place was the end of the dream for me. I had come to Wales, worked incredibly hard to learn the language and culture, and all it had earned me was a small-time teaching gig in a town where the Welshness had withered away before I was even born. Sometimes, when I'd find myself again with a studentless classroom and an hour's wait for the next bus, I would walk out to the remains of the Roman barracks, sit on the walls and cry because I hated my life so much.

This speaks to something I mentioned when I first came up with the idea for this tea-towel-driven adventure: I carry a great big heaping lot of bitterness and animosity toward Wales. Several of the worst years of my life have been spent in this country. I want to overcome that, but there will be times during this adventure when it will all come flooding back and I'll just want to scream and set things on fire. That's kind of how I felt upon visiting Caerleon again.

Which is a really unfair amount of weight to put on the shoulders of an otherwise quaint British suburban town. In and of itself, there is nothing too terribly offensive about Caerleon. Nor too terribly exciting. 

From a motorcycling standpoint, you can cover the town in under three minutes. That's assuming you want to see it twice. There is a single one-way road that runs in a circle around/through the town taking you on a speedy tour past Roman remains and a handful of interesting looking pubs.

If you ignore the soul-destroyingly uninteresting 1970s semi-detached homes on Caerleon's outskirts, it is a town set within an attractive valley of the River Usk. Thanks in part to the fact Caerleon's train station closed in the 1960s and buses are so rare, it seems most of the undesirable elements of Newport don't make it this far upriver. 

If you've got good weather and sturdy legs, you can use Caerleon as the starting point for the 25-mile Usk Valley Walk, which will eventually land you in the very charming and very much worth visiting (even though it's not on my tea towel map) town of Abergavenny. Jenn and I have walked various sections of the route and I've always come away from the experience feeling inspired.

So my point is, Caerleon is a very nice spot indeed. As long as you're not me. 

Before heading here, I had thought I might stop and have lunch at one of the pubs that overlook the River Usk, the day being just barely warm enough for me to sit outside. But when I got to Caerleon I managed only to take a picture of the old Roman amphitheatre before a deep feeling of needing to be elsewhere kicked up inside me. I rode two or three loops around the town before deciding there was nothing worth taking a picture of, then sped away.

Caerleon town centre

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(a) One of the things that makes Wales harder to love than its Celtic cousins of Ireland and Scotland is that it lacks the sort of songs, dances, foods and traditions those places have. Protestantism spent a very long time stifling creativity in Wales, to the point that well into the late 1800s it was considered sinful to read or write a work of fiction, because fiction is inherently a lie, and to lie is a sin.

(b) In one of Morgan's novels -- either Dirgel Ddyn or Y Ddynes Ddirgel, I can't remember which -- the main character is a Welsh teacher who creates a false student for the sake of having the bare number of students to hold a class.

ADSENSE HERE

GWTTA: Newport, South Wales (Casnewydd)

It seems appropriate for Newport to be the first place visited on the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure. It is here, after all, that I finally passed my Mod 2 exam, thereby earning my motorcycle license.

It is appropriate, too, because Newport exemplifies how utterly random is my tea towel map. I can think of very few scenarios in which I would suggest Newport as a place to visit. I doubt many Welsh people –– including and especially those from Newport –– would tell you to visit, either. Newport is not a place to go to of your own free will; it is a place to ridicule.

Literally translated, the town's Welsh name, Casnewydd, means "new hate," but, of course, this name is almost certainly a mishearing of whatever people were calling it centuries ago. That happens a lot in South Wales. Cardiff's Welsh name, for example, is Caerdydd, which literally translates to "Day Fortress" (a). The name of the town I live in, Penarth, translates to "Bear's Head" (b).

According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, Newport's original Welsh name was Castell Newydd ar Wysg, meaning "New Castle on the River Usk." The castle being referred to there hasn't been new since about 1087. Get used to this sort of thing as the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure rolls on: stuff is really old here. Sadly, this particular really old stuff is no longer visible, its crumbled remains having been buried under rubble created by railway work in the 1840s.

That's not to say Newport is sans castle. After all, Wales is home to more castles and fortresses than any other country in the world –– for a city to be without one would be gauche, darling. A new, new castle was built around 1327. Within two centuries, it had fallen into disrepair but it was used by various invading forces off and on right through the inaccurately named English Civil War (c).

These days the castle is little more than a miserable pile of rocks, occupied primarily by dodgy-looking teenagers. "Dodgy-looking" is a descriptor that can be used for almost everything in Newport: buildings, people, cars, rail-road tracks, even the River Usk as it churns wide and muddy through the middle of the city.

In case you're wondering, Newport smells as bad as it looks.

Still, for some reason I can't quite fathom, I have a little soft spot in my heart for Newport. That is to say, I don't outright hate it. I guess the fact I passed my motorcycle test there plays a part in this. Along with the correlating days I spent riding all around the city in training for the test.

Located less than 15 miles from Penarth, it is a place to which I will often ride when I want to refresh certain skills. The almost-always-empty car park for Newport Stadium is a good place to work on slow-speed manoeuvres. The width of the roads through city centre make them ideal for practicing the art of filtering. And overall, the city's roads are pretty quiet, except for certain roundabouts connecting the major arteries of the Sirhowy, Ebbw, Ebbw Fach, Llwyd and Usk valleys.

All of these road junctions are in the north of the city, where the M4 runs past, exporting goods and talent to Cardiff and the more profitable towns and cities of Southwest England. And therein lies the only thing that Newport has ever had going for it: it's conveniently located near better stuff.

During the Roman occupation it was conveniently located near the legionary fortress of Caerleon. During the Industrial Revolution it was conveniently located between Wales' ore-rich valleys and the sea. These days it's conveniently located between the major cultural centres of Cardiff and Bristol. However, its interminable ugliness and notoriously drunken and drugged-up residents mean it hasn't really been able to shape itself into a commuter town.

Newport's most famous residents, comedy rap group Goldie Lookin' Chain (who achieved their greatest fame with the songs "Your Mother's Got A Penis" and "Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do"), are a mocking but equally accurate portrayal of the sort of person you're likely to encounter in the city: dirty, bedecked in discount leisurewear, under the influence of at least one kind of substance, but ultimately convivial and open to conversation. Newport, in other words, is one of those places that apologists like to describe as "having a lot of character."

And, indeed it does. Or, rather, it should. If you look at Newport, it seems to have all the elements necessary to be a cool, quirky, artist haven like London's Camden neighbourhood, or Brooklyn's Williamsburg. But it isn't. The artists aren't here; they won't come. It's just an ugly place full of scary people that, because of its general desolation, happens to be a good spot to practice riding one's motorcycle.

I rode into the city taking the old Newport Road out of Cardiff, a route that was long ago superseded by the adjacent A48, and thereafter the M4. As such, Newport Road is relatively quiet. It is one of the few places in Britain where you can cheerfully putt along at the speed limit without having other road users aggressively trying to force you to go faster. At St Mellons, it joins up with the A48 for a few miles but this section, too, is almost always quiet.

Reaching the city boundaries I began looking for something to take a picture of. Anything. This was something of a challenge because the look of Newport is generally one of two things: 1) crumbling post-industrial decay; or 2) a flat space where crumbling post-industrial decay has been levelled and replaced by a McDonalds or KFC.

Eventually I settled on the Transporter Bridge.

Built in 1906 as a unique answer to the problem of getting people across a river that is also used for shipping, the Transporter Bridge features a sort of platform gondola that hangs from wires. Within a few years it was being used as a setting in the film Tiger Bay, which highlighted how utterly shit life in South Wales was in the 1950s. A few decades later, the bridge ceased operation because it had fallen into disrepair and there was no need for it; industry was dead.

These days it is just a tourist destination that struggles to stay open because there are no tourists. When I stopped to take pictures, a woman at the bridge's shed-sized visitor centre asked me if I was lost.

She explained to me the bridge was closed for the winter. Should I be keen to return in summer there are specific open days during which I can ride the bridge's gondola back and forth to my heart's content and climb to the top of the structure all for the low price of £2.75. It's an unmitigated bargain, to be sure, but the problem is that it requires you spend time in Newport.

After finishing the cup of tea the woman had kindly offered, I decided I had spent enough time here and packed up to move on. If the goal of this whole adventure is to improve my opinion of Wales, it was probably best to get Newport out of the way as soon as possible.

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(a) Most people agree that Caerdydd is a bastardisation of "Caer Daf," which would mean "Taff Fortress." That name makes sense, considering Cardiff began life nigh 2,000 years ago as a Roman fortress on the banks of the River Taff.

(b) Although Penarth Town Council have embraced the bear's head theme, even going so far as to incorporate several images of bears into the town crest, Penarth's name is probably a mishearing of "Pen y Garth," which means "top of the hill." And surprise, surprise, Penarth is located at the top of a hill.

(c) Which took place in the 1640s. If you're unfamiliar with the English Civil War, here it is explained in two and half minutes through the medium of song.

ADSENSE HERE

The Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure

My first year in Wales was awful. Ranked among my thus far 38.5 years on this planet, I would say it was the second worst of my life -- edged out of the top spot by my fourth year in Wales. I am willing to bet that the third worst year of my life also took place in Wales, which sort of begs the question as to why the hell I am still living here. But I'll get to that in a moment.

Despite it being so generally awful, there were in that first year some highlights. One of which being the day Mormons showed up at the door with a TV.

My ex-wife was (and presumably still is) a member of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, and had found a welcome in the nearby Rhiwbina ward soon after our arrival in Cardiff. I am thankful she did. I doubt very much that we would have survived that first year on our own.

For those of you playing along at home, if you are considering a move to the Old World, be prepared to suffer at least 8 months of unemployment. Jobs are a hell of a lot harder to find in Europe than in the United States. Hitherto our moving to the United Kingdom, the longest my ex-wife or I had ever gone without work was just two weeks. Having arrived Cardiff in early July, we were by late October in dire straits.

Most of the money we had saved up before moving was now gone. Primarily we were living off my student loans and her minimum wage earnings from a part-time gig at Starbucks. We ate a lot of rice; I can't now remember a meal that didn't pad the stomach with rice. We didn't have a car. Getting groceries meant walking 2 miles to the Tesco and stuffing everything into backpacking rucksacks.

We couldn't afford to go out; we couldn't even afford a television. Meanwhile, I had learned that I was in way over my head in university, so my life became one of attending lectures and thereafter coming home to lock myself away in the study. At night I would surface just long enough to wolf down a rice-heavy meal, then disappear again until well after midnight -- collapsing into bed with eyes hurting from staring at Welsh dictionaries. My ex-wife would spend the evenings reading in silence.

Her respite was attending church. Or "chapel," as they call it here in Wales. Going to "church" usually implies attending Church of England services. Not that many people here do either these days. And to that end, LDS meetinghouses are few and far between. Cardiff, being the largest city in Wales, has two but neither were particularly close to us. So, members of my ex-wife's ward would give her a lift.

Stoic almost to a fault, I doubt very much that she ever complained of her condition -- thousands of miles away from family, poor, highly qualified but reduced to serving coffee (a substance barred by her religion), effectively ignored by her academically swamped husband, left to spend her free time alone and reading in silence -- but no doubt the members of her ward were able to pick up on her unhappiness. So, one night, amid the rainy creeping darkness of October, a group of them showed up unannounced and armed with gifts.

There was the TV, of course -- a 27-inch-screen beast that one of the congregation had had lying around spare. He insisted upon giving it to us because, he joked, he didn't want us to miss seeing Wales playing in the international rugby matches that take place each November. More touching, though, was the huge care package the group had brought with them. It was full of foodstuffs like canned goods, pasta, rice (more rice!), and a few jars of Caro, which is what British Mormons drink instead of tea (which is also against the LDS Word of Wisdom). But also there were a number of Welsh items: local jam, honey and chocolates, a little stuffed dragon, and a tea towel featuring a map of Wales.

A few years later came that aforementioned fourth year in this country. That was the year that put the "ex" in ex-wife. Our lives had gotten better, but they hadn't gotten good. And all the years of struggle had worn us down and made us miserable. In particular, both of us had developed a very deep, angry bitterness toward Wales. My ex-wife wisely responded to this by leaving the country. I still don't really understand why I stayed.

Ultimately, we are both much better off these days, and staying here was the right decision for me. But if you've read this blog for very long you will almost certainly have picked up that much of my old bitterness remains. I don't want to make myself angry by trying to express just how deep that well goes, but suffice to say it is a motherhugger. And it is so intense as to be a hindrance. 

I mean, uhm, I'm a pretty lonely dude; I don't have a lot of Welsh friends. You could count them all on one hand and still have enough fingers to hold a cup of tea and a Kit-Kat. There's a reason for that: my attitude doesn't make me easy to befriend. If I knew someone who was anywhere near as critical of the United States as I am of Wales I sure as hell wouldn't be his pal. I understand this logically, as well as the fact that it is utterly ridiculous to be so emotionally hurt by a place, but I struggle to overcome it.

Quite some time ago I learned through the grapevine that my ex-wife had actually returned to the UK after our divorce, for a visit. Apparently she had come expressly to "make peace with Wales," keen to bury and move on from her own negative emotions toward this little wet nation. It's a good idea, and something I have tried to do myself, though without much success.

I think that is partially because of how I've gone about it. I haven't left. You can't really "move on" if you don't move. Instead, it occurs to me that if you're going to stay in a place, it's probably better to try to rekindle the affection that brought you there in the first place.

Meanwhile, I have noticed that my overall level of rage toward all things Welsh has decreased considerably ever since I got a motorcycle. (You were wondering when a motorcycle was going to fit into this, weren't you?) And I have thought that perhaps one way of getting over my bitterness toward Wales is to get to know it better, to invest some time trying to remind myself why I wanted to live here, why I was desperate to call this place my home.

And here's where we get to the point of all this. I still have that tea towel given to me by Mormons back in 2006. As I say, it's primary image is a map of Wales. Though there are also a few drawings of notable buildings, such as Harlech Castle and the Swansea Guildhall...

"Wait. The Swansea Guildhall? What the hell is so special about that? It's just an office building used by the council. Who would list that as a tourist attraction?" 

That was the thought that came to me recently as I found myself actually looking at the tea towel for the first time in a number of years (rather than simply using it to dry dishes, or watching Jenn accidentally set it on fire whilst cooking, as she does with most of our tea towels). And upon further examination I saw that little of this representation of Wales made sense. The map lists some 66 cities, towns and villages in Wales, along with one national park –– those being:

• Aberaeron 
• Aberdaron 
• Aberdovey 
• Aberporth 
• Abersoch 
• Aberystwyth 
• Amlwch 
• Ammanford 
• Bala 
• Bangor 
• Barmouth 
• Barry 
• Beaumaris 
• Borth 
• Brecon 
• Bridgend 
• Builth Wells 
• Caerleon 
• Caernarfon 
• Cardiff 
• Cardigan 
• Carmarthen 
• Conwy 
• Corwen 
• Criccieth 
• Dolgellau 
• Fishguard 
• Flint 
• Harlech 
• Haverfordwest 
• Holyhead 
• Kidwelly 
• Knighton 
• Lampeter 
• Llanberis 
• Llandudno 
• Llanelli 
• Llangollen 
• Llanrhystyd 
• Machynlleth 
• Merthyr Tydfil 
• Milfordhaven 
• Monmouth 
• Montgomery 
• Neath 
• Nefyn 
• New Quay 
• Newcastle Emlyn 
• Newport (South Wales)
• Newport (Pembrokeshire) 
• Newtown 
• Pembroke 
• Pontypridd 
• Port Talbot 
• Porthcawl 
• Porthmadog 
• Pwllheli 
• Rhyl 
• Ruthin 
• Saint David's 
• Saudersfoot
• Snowdonia 
• Swansea 
• Tenby 
• Tywyn 
• Welshpool

Effectively this is just a random collection of places. There is no rhyme or reason here. This is certainly not a map of places that you should or necessarily would want to visit. I mean, Borth –– a city that Morrissey described as a "seaside town that they forgot to bomb" –– makes the list, but Hay-on-Wye, home to one of the world's best known literature festivals, does not. The thoroughly unspectacular town of Barry is listed, but tourist honey pot Abergavenny isn't. The map mentions Port Talbot for Pete's sake. The thinking behind the selection process here is impossible for me to grasp.

But, see, in its randomness, its that-doesn't-make-a-damned-bit-of-sense-ness, this tea towel map is so very, very Welsh. That is such a Welsh thing to do. Welsh people are often clueless about what might make Wales appealing; its part of their charm.

So, from this ridiculous tea-towel-based map I came up with a ridiculous idea: to visit every single one of these places. Because why not? Any excuse to ride a motorcycle is a good one, and maybe this excuse can help change the way I think of Wales. Maybe riding to pointless corners like Ammanford and Knighton, and, more importantly all the spaces in between, can cure me of my Welsh hate.

It shouldn't be too hard. Wales is a tiny place; in the case of all the locations on the map, I can ride there and back within a day. The only trick is hitting these places in good weather. After all, if your stated goal is one of improving your impression of Wales, definitely don't go visiting places in the rain.

So, that's the plan. I'm aiming to visit all 67 spots within the next year or so. Maybe longer. We'll see what happens. I'll be keeping an eye on the weather and seizing whatever riding opportunities I can. Expect my first report soon.

ADSENSE HERE