Anglesey is the wheel deal
Marcus Queenborough and his family get on their bikes for an island road trip
Ilike to think of my family as fairly fit and healthy, so when the opportunity arose to take part in a cycling festival in Anglesey, we decided to go for it.
However, my wife Julie, was keen to enrol us all on the 42-mile trek across the Island, my heart sank – I thought we were going to watch.
She said we needed to stretch ourselves. 42 miles, that sounds like eternity to me on a bike. So we set off to North Wales with the bikes on the roof for the epic journey on the Tour de Mon.
The annual cycling festival in Holyhead has three different routes around the island, 42, 76 and 107 miles, thank goodness Julie was content with the just 42.
As we set off on our marathon – did I mention it was 42 miles – the sun even shone, and off we went in batches of 25 riders every few minutes with the other 1000 riders from the carnival atmosphere.
The first section of the route took us along a beautiful coastline with gorgeous bays dotted along the roadside and lots of hills. The hilly bit of the route seemed to have been missed out from the itinerary, I’m sure someone told me Anglesey was flat. They lied, it’s not.
Cycling our way through beautiful countryside we reached the halfway point at Mona Airfield, just off Telford’s famous route, the A5. Stopping at the feeding station for energy (and we needed lots of that) you get the opportunity to go for the “Flying Mile” – a timed ride along the runway with a marker.
Timer going, I sped along the route. However, a head wind swept straight onto me as I ploughed along the wide route with the landing marks from the planes in front of me, feeling like I had a lead weight behind me.
Julie asked me my time for the run, but I was too embarrassed to even go over the timer marker at the end, sensing the slowest time on the track would only demoralise me.
However ,the support from some of the locals was fantastic. We felt like the “kings of the mountains”, as they rang their cow bells and applauded and cheered us on our way.
Onward bound and only 20 miles to go. Is that all? The last section took us along the coastline again back to the start and finish line at Holyhead. Those last few miles seemed to be the longest distance known to man. My daughter Abi and I were pushing the bikes uphill at this point, with Abi (16), looking to me an saying, “Dad, we have done many activities as a family, but this has to be the hardest ever”. I have to agree with her. But eventually the end was in sight and we triumphantly made it across the finishing line in 4 hours, 31 minutes and 56 seconds. My oldest daughter Gemma (18), beat us by a good half an hour.
Our times might not break any world records, or win any Olympic golds, but I felt I had cycled around the world. We had managed to pedal, push, drag and yank our bikes over the route.
Move over Chris Froome, the Queenborough family are chasing your pedals. Well, working on it.
Heading home to nurse sore bottoms, aching backs, tired limbs and painful muscles, we stayed at the Woburn Hill Hotel in Cemaes. This was a great base for the weekend, set in a lovely bay on the North coast of the Island with a beautiful harbour and great stretches of sand.
We stayed in the annex, and found it a great retreat. Tucked away in a small family room, we had space to recover from the day’s events and soak away the stresses in the bath. Then we were ready to go again. I don’t think I have ever eaten so well, or so much, as during this break on Anglesey. We started the day at Woburn with a good traditional Welsh breakfast, which filled me up all day.
For our evening meal on the first day we drove to the South of the Island to Rhosneigr where we found the Oyster Catcher restaurant, in a beautiful location amid sand dunes next to an inland lake. We thoroughly enjoyed eating the fish and chips – which were more like whale and chips due to the size – as we watched the sun go down from the upstairs restaurant.
The following night was spent at Bishopsgate House Hotel in Beaumaris, a lovely quite and intimate restaurant with fine dining in comfortable surroundings. A great place to sit and unwind. Another gem of a restaurant was the Red Boat Ice Cream parlour, also in Beaumaris, which serves a huge range of ice cream. Ice cream sundaes galore – a great lunch time treat to enjoy on our hols.
No trip to Anglesey is complete without a visit toll an fairpwllgwyngy ll go gerychwr nd robw ll ll an ty si lio go go goch. This fascinated my youngest daughter Abi, standing in front of the longest place name in the British Isles.
In reality there is not a great deal there, just a large shopping centre but it is a great place to visit and attempt to spell and pronounce.
We had been told about the magnificent beaches on Anglesey and decided to head towards Red Wharf Bay, known for its vast stretches of sand.
However, during our visit the rain hammered down and we could barely see the end of our noses through the mist and rain, and settled for admiring the view from the car window, framed by an old tax disc and two wind screen wipers. Any further adventures would have been folly under the conditions as we might have become water logged. Well it has been known to rain in Wales on the odd occasion.
We thoroughly enjoyed our short break on the Island of Anglesey, and thanks to the cycle experience we have got the bug for another ride, possibly just one or two miles less next time might be better for my bottom.