On Sunday we had a pleasant run across to St Fagans, just West of Cardiff.  In spite of the fact that many people would be returning from the Bournemouth weekend, nine bikes met just North of Faringdon, at the Ex Little Chef café and we picked up Tim at Cirencester.  So we had 10 blokes, supervised by Rosemary.

The weather was sunny, and not too hot, ideal for motorcycling.  We overcame the roundabout/traffic light set up at Gloucester, with only a little fragmenting.

Due to the length of the run, we could not take the smallest roads which would have been better for motorcycling, but there was not too much dual carriageway riding.  Down into Monmouth we came across some road works with traffic lights, but this allowed us to consolidate the bikes.

Dave and Rosemary, looking after the tail, did get cut off by one set of traffic lights, but Dave made up the time easily enough; a brief unfettered bit of riding, not having to follow anyone.

By delaying the start to 9-15am, we reached Monmouth at just past 11-00am, which was when the Robin Hood pub opened.  This was one of the things that the pre running of the route identified.  It was pleasing that as I pulled up at the car park, Dave and Rosemary were just pulling into the car park.  So we were all together.

We used the drop off system to walk to the pub, even though it was just across the road from the car park.  The entrance was round the corner though.  There we had coffee/tea, and a comfort break.

On the way out of Monmouth we stopped to refuel where necessary, and then aimed Westwards to the South of Abergaveny,  onto the Heads of the Valleys road.  Some of this road is being made into a dual carriageway, which was a shame compared to its old windy two lane form, but this was an accident of timing.  Then South down the A470 to St Fagans.

We were stopped just before the car park by a gentleman who explained where I should park.  I thanked him and said that there were 10 of us.  He wiped his forehead, spoke to a van driver in Welsh, and told us to follow that van.  He lead us to the staff car park and we parked on the entrance road to it.

We split up into little groups at this point, and most, if not all of us took some refreshments.  Then we walked round the site in our little groups.  Hopefully everyone had a good time, I think we all did.  I then followed Tim back to the M4, the new RT keeping up with his K1600 quite happily.