Ystradgynlais 2024

This is a Rubicon, over which I have now stepped. This is a Rubicon over-which no man should tread.

And yet here it is. And here I am.

I look at it, but it doesn’t look back at me. It has no eyes. It has no soul. As dark as Satan’s heart, and as risky as hell. It’s an inky-black devil, that exudes: Bad Voodoo.

And yet here it is. And here am I.

If I dismounted this motorbike, could I climb this thing? No, not without a machete, to cut-in some steps. Any attempt to climb-it, unaided, would have you slithering back-down, on your belly: bruised, muddied, and swearing. This thing is just too steep. This thing is more ‘wall’ than slope.

And yet here it is. And here am I.

Even by my standards, this thing is stupid. In fact, this thing is the apogee of idiocy. This thing is so far away from my comfort zone, that I will need to re-set my watch.

I’ve come to a stop, on a gravel road. The traction under my wheels is akin to that of ball-bearings and finely greased weasels. This is no accident, this scenario has been exactingly measured and intricately designed, to have precisely no grip. There is no run-up to this thing. Just a standing start, and then a near vertical wall, of wet rock and mud - that’s only fit for mountain goats, in crampons.

And yet here it is. And here I am.

God bless him, he tried. The guy on the motorbike ahead of me, so nearly made it. God bless him, he almost did it. He had managed to get his front wheel over the ledge at the top, but not the rest of the bike. Not the rest of the 230Kg bike. And he’d grabbed all of the front brake and just like in The Italian Job, he’d had come to a rest: half-on and half-off.

And he knew it, and I knew it… and hell, everyone watching knew it too: that the only way off this thing… was backwards.

And I’m sat here, atop my machine, in utter indescribable stillness, watching it all play-out in front of me. The geometry of this hill-climb is enough to cure any man of constipation. The last time I saw anyone ride a motorcycle up a slope this steep, it was the 1970s …and the guy was wearing a cape.

And yet here it is. And here I am.

I’m sitting still, not blinking and not breathing. For a moment, I consider swearing at myself inside my helmet, much like I’ve been doing all day – but there are no expletives big enough for what I now see ahead of me.

What my Instructor has just asked me to do is an obscenity in the face of gravity. He has told me to park my bike at the bottom of this “thing” and then gun my throttle; so as to ride my heavyweight motorcycle directly up a near vertical mountainside. The bike that I’m on is a 900cc Triumph. It weights as much as a Bengal Tiger. This ‘thing’ …this glistening black scar on the mountain-side, is immovable, and unknowable. It has no odour, but if there was a fragrance in its honour, it’d probably smell like hospital food.

And yet here it is. And here I am.

He’s still there: the guy ahead of me… still half-on and half-off, but his limbs are weakening, and beginning to tremble. You can’t hold a bike like that, in a position like that, for all that long. The bike is in gear, so he now releases the brake, and the bike lurches back and is stopped by its clutch. Guided by the instructor below him, this lad now slowly squeezes the clutch, which causes the bike to lurch back again. It’s getting too much for him, his knees are almost spent, and then his left-foot slips-out from under him. Down he goes, to the right of the path, and backwards flips the bike, end-over-end. Not content with taking down the rider, the bike now goes for the Instructor. With the machine barrelling towards him, like the stone boulder from Indiana Jones, our teacher jumps down the hillside and leaps over a rock ravine. The bike misses him, narrowly, and instead satisfies its desire for pain by ripping-out a beech tree, where the instructor once stood.

God knows how much it will be to repair this bike. The guy I’d met at lunch, told me that he’d done £2,000 worth of damage to his bike, in that morning alone.

The lad ahead rolls off his belly, and bum-slides back down the rest of the slope. The Instructor drags the tree away from the path and into the gully, and then they both grimace and lift the fallen bike back onto two wheels. A quarter tonne of motorbike is heavy enough to lift at the beginning of the day, but now, on the last exercise of the afternoon, it’s almost impossible. Eventually, gaspingly, they get is back upright again.

It's my turn next. I am at the head of the column of remaining riders: seven burly grown-ass men. All sitting in silence. Fear has taken their voices. Fear has taken my voice too. This mountain path ahead of me is as high as a Double-Decker bus, and for most of its length, steeper than a ladder. From sheer panic and undiluted fear, the toes inside my right boot now start to spasm, the three smaller ones clench-down into a tightly knotted fist, and the two larger ones flex upwards, like dueling male cobras. The pain is excruciating.

The path ahead has now been cleared of bikes and trees, and the route is clear. The stage is set.

And there it is. And here am I.

The Instructor walks backwards towards me, satisfying himself that everything on path ahead of me is as it should be, and with a smallest of looks over his right shoulder, calls-out devilishly:

"OK Blanko... On you go… "