End of an era? lets hope not.

I don't know how many people realise, or sadly how many people care; this is the last season for the Afan Argoed visitors centre and for the Afan Valley Bike Shed.

I hope that a way can be found for these facilities to be saved, but as with several of the local primary schools, sadly those hopes are (and are likely to be) in vain; the Council is struggling to deal with huge year on year cuts in funding from the Welsh Assembly. The time for appeals and petitons are over, whats needed now is innovation, a way to help bring more revenue to a great, and unfortuantely underused resource.... or ideally a sponsor, anyone with some spare cash?!.

I must admit, I don't make as much use of the facilites as maybe I should, I live locally so quite often cycle to Afan and tend not to use the cafe as I normally head for home from other points on the trail. Though, on hot days it's been a real life saver with an ice cream and cold drink. Likewise, the 'Bike shed has helped in times of need, with the occasional inner tube or brake pad, but this alone won't keep a buisness running. It needs a lot of peoples £'s, come on guys and girls, support the local bike shop, it wont break the bank and will help keep these places open for when you REALLY need
them.

Here's a couple of thoughts, I guess a drop in the ocean in the funding gap, but to get the wheel turning as it were.

• Increase parking to £2 a day. (this would make the season ticket a much better buy) Parking is currently £1 for all day, it's £3 a day in Glyncorrwg.
• Discount at the cafe for parking season ticket holders.
• Use the cafe, even if it's just for a post ride brew and biscuit! also,
• Use the Bike Shed, even if you just buy a cliff bar or brake pad!
• Regular guided walks from the centre.

I'd like to see a revamp of the visitors centre, but that's just a pipe dream. IMHO, I think the cafe is on the 'wrong side' of the centre, there's the potential to have a cafe with a south aspect and great view down the valley and over some of the trails themselves.

I'll be trying to make more time to support Afan in what's likely to be it's last few weeks, using the cafe rather than rushing home, please everyone, can you do the same. Maybe with enough support, a way will be found to keep the cafe and the Bike Shed open.
   
Would you as a rider be prepared to pay a little more in parking costs if you knew that this was helping keep the facilities open and the trails maintained?

Pairing a Hero 4 Black with a GoPro Remote Control.

As you may have seen in some of my previous postings, the front LCD screen on my 2 day old GoPro Hero 4 Black was smashed.

Overtime the screen has become completely unreadable, which is annoying! A major plus point of the GoPro is it's wifi connectivity and smartphone app. The GoPro app allows pretty much full control of the GoPro and fortunately I'd paired the camera to my smartphone before the screen was smashed, so I've been getting by without the screen.

Unfortunately, I've now changed my phone, so the pairing has been broken. To pair a new phone to the camera a code is required, the code would usually be displayed on the LCD screen - no screen, no code, no pairing!

I've still got my old Hero 2 and Remote Control, Googling the pairing process for the camera and RC let me to YouTube. I found quite a useful video by Brynmag Productions, which I must have watched a dozen times to note down the key presses (as I'm working blind with no screen).

This process worked for me, I linked my RC to the Hero 4 successfully and was able to control the camera, it may not be the same for you - but if you are in the same boat as me, then it maybe worth a try! (I'm not responsible if anything horrible happens!)

Power on (wait a few seconds to start fully)

3 presses of power button to get to settings
1 press of shutter to select settings

1press of shutter to select wifi

2presses of power to get to RC
1press of shutter to select

1press of power to get to 'new'
1press of shutter to select

Make sure your RC is in pairing mode and they should connect.

Another useful tip, is if the camera is off, press and hold the settings button (the one on the side) for a few seconds and it will switch on the wifi.

Bontrager Twentyfour12

I've been pretty quiet on here of late, it's amazing how time gets away from you! I will have to try and get some 'post dated' posts uploaded.

I foolishly agreed to join a team entered in the Bontrager Twentyfour12, basically it's an endurance mountain bike race. There are several races which sit under this umbrella, our team was entered in the 24 hour team race. This years event spanned the 26th and 27th July (this did put the dampeners on my attempt at this years Rapha Rising challenge on Strava)

I really didn't know what to expect of what I've gotten myself into, but what the hey!

The plan was to get down to Plymouth and setup camp on Thursday 24th July, leaving Friday free for a 'natural' loop on Dartmoor, then Saturday and Sunday for the race itself.

Thankfully the guys at Tredz managed to squeeze my full sus in for some repairs, it's been limping since a trip to the Quantocks earlier this year which resulted in a bent mech hanger and mech. I had it straightened shortly after, but it was never right.

Anyway, I decided as this was going to be my hols for this year that I would hire a van, I could then take my full sus and hardtail, plus camping gear, clothes etc and sleep in it if the weather took a turn for the worse. The journey down was hot, very hot! and it wasn't helped by a faulty electric window, according to the thermometer in the van it as 32 degrees.

Friday looked like it was going to be another hot, dry day, by the time we'd got ourselves sorted and up to Dartmoor it was almost 1pm and it was hot.

The ride itself was a mix of terrains including fast and flowing tracks, some long tarmac road climbs and a couple of really tough boulder descents (well I found them tough). A brief stop in the pub was called for, to refill our camelbaks and for a cheeky pint (soft drinks of course, but the ciders looked good) and packet of crisps.

Some tracks were very overgrown, and we had no choice but to push, but the views were well worth it. I'll definitely have to go back.

That evening we had a barbecue and that cider we were due from earlier!

The day of the race dawned, another bright, hot day, the nerves were beginning to kick in. On hindsight I think that we should have done a recon lap of the course! We had breakfast and before the children's races (which one of the guys children were entered in) we worked out what order we'd ride in. Jon would go first, he'd organised the team and had ridden the event before, so would be better prepared for the hectic start, I'd go second, followed by the other two guys. We'd each do two laps before handing over, then as it got dark we'd think about changing this, though we all wanted to do some night laps.

We estimated that our laps would be around 45 minutes, based on that we could work out when we needed to be in transition ready for the change over. I got my ht ready for the race and headed down, the nerves were on edge, was I fit enough? was the course going to be to technical for me?  We all realised that we weren't going to in contention for anything, which took some of the pressure off, but we weren't riding to 'lark about', we wanted to try and do our best.

After about 30 mins waiting, I was there early and we hadn't taken into account that the first lap was a little longer, I saw Jon coming into the Start/finish area, it was to late to back out now. I made my way to the fence and waited to be tagged, one of the guys kids had decided that we should handover with the title of that classic Glee hit 'Don't Stop Believing'! so as I was tagged with this, it did lighten the mood and resulted in an odd look from one or two of the other riders.

The course weaved out of the arena, across the stream then after a short track though a field then up a steep hill, from there a section through the woods which had a few technical, but thankfully not to tough sections, then back down to the camp site via a fast rocky descent, which was really good fun. I did manage to clip my handle bars at the end of this section on a narrow bridge as we entered the camp ground. Sorry to the guys I held up.

From here the course followed the edge of the campsite and into some trees to cross the stream once more, this time resulting in wet feet, which in the heat of the day was nicely cooling. After the stream crossing and some rooty sections through the trees we arrived on a fireroad which climbed to a area which appeared to be of use for clay pigeon shooting. There was a whacking great boulder in the middle of the track which had to be avoided! then a fast farm track section and across the stream for the final time of the lap. Some more farm track to a short steep climb which levelled off until we left the trees and entered the arena via a fast smooth grass descent (30+ mph), and onto transition.

The heat took it's tole, two of the guys got cramp and couldn't continue after their second stint of two laps. I found that I really didn't have the fitness for the hardtail on the bumpy course, where I really needed to stay out of the saddle and use my legs as shock absorbers, so swapped over to my full sus. What time I lost on the climbs, I made up for on the rougher sections of the course. Myself and Jon decided that we'd do another night lap and then call it a day until 8am, when we'd start off again.

We managed a total of 22 laps of the 7.5 mile course, at a fairly consistent time of between 40 and 50 mins during the day over the 4 team members, and around 55 mins for the night lap.
We were firmly near the bottom of the tables, but we all enjoyed and even before the event was over we were discussing entering it again!