Steel Horse 100 route

When my old mate Mick came down from Brum on his trusty old Fazer 1000, I thought I’d take him to the excellent Steel Horse Cafe near Abergavenny. But to make it interesting I came up with a variation on the ‘Treelined Rollercoaster (A466)’ described as Ride 31 in Simon Weir’s book Bikers’ Britain.

Starting at our cottage in Lydbrook, it was down through the two hairpins and up to the A4136, which descends from the Forest escarpment village of Staunton to Monmouth. Picking up the aforementioned Treelined Rollercoaster route we tracked the River Wye through Redbrook (ignoring the call of the Boat Inn across the old footbridge), Llandogo, then Tintern: the ruined abbey looking impressive in the afternoon sun.

Picking our way past the Sunday dawdlers on the Seven Bends we left Ride 31 at the roundabout after the racecourse, turning right onto the B4293. Less traffic here, up over Itton Common and through Trellech on perfect biking terrain, looking down at the long viaduct as we descended towards Monmouth again.

A sharp left turn at the T-junction onto the unclassified road that runs parallel to the A40 took us to the Raglan Castle roundabout: straight over on the same road up towards the signposted garden centre, past a couple of biker-friendly pubs and eventually into Llanvihangel Gobion where I successfully failed to overshoot the discreet turning to the Steel Horse Cafe.

SHC: a good menu, home-made food, biker-themed cafe…. perfick…

Mick just loves tea and lemon drizzle cake…..

Tasty Beemer….

Usual suspects….

Well, the coffee and bakewell tart was most appreciated but it was soon time to proceed. Onwards towards Abergavenny we joined the B4598, soon arriving at the big A40 roundabout. Then it was straight up the A465 – a fast road with sweeping bends, bisecting those local peaks the Sugar Loaf and the Skirrid. Pandy and Pontrilas flashed past in a blur and we were soon in Hereford – Mick turned left to find the T34 tank at Fromes Hill while I turned right towards Ross On Wye on the A49.

Branching off after Harewood End I took the muddy but fast A4137 down to Marstow, crossing the Wye at Kerne Bridge and following the river down to Lydbrook and up those hairpins to home.

The route ended up being exactly 100 miles door to door, including fast A roads, fast B roads, fast unclassified roads and everything in between…. There were hills, tight bends, sweeping bends, castles, abbey ruins, great pubs, that bikers’ cafe and miles of great views of the gorgeous River Wye, with its herons, swans and canoes.

And the Forest pot holes were not an issue this time: someone must have repaired them! Mick agreed that it was well worth repeating – the cafe could be a good place to watch the TT next year, on their big TV screen…