UK ADVENTURE
SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE
Alf Alderson was enticed to South Carmarthenshire by a local tourist board promotion – but did the riding live up to the hype?
WORDS ALF ALDERSON
PHOTOGRAPHY ALF ALDERSON VS DISCOVER CARMARTHENSHIRE
Sometimes the best riding is right on your doorstep and while you may not always know it, you can be sure your local tourist board does. Check out their website and you’ll see pictures of shiny, happy people looking very lovely on sunny, dusty trails and handling their bikes with the kind of style and grace the rest of us can only dream about. At day’s end, with many kilometres of trails crushed beneath the mud-free, knobbly tyres of their glistening steeds and their finely honed bodies scarcely having broken sweat, our heroes and heroines will stash their remarkably clean machines in their brand new campervan and adjourn to sip a refreshing local craft beer in the welcoming hostelry of their choice before dining on the finest cuisine (locally produced, of course, and organic to boot), eventually retiring to a bed the size of a barge before sleeping peacefully to rise fresh and sparkling and do it all again tomorrow.
And you, too, could be like them, simply by visiting the same trails.
If only…
The beautiful ones
Yet we all fall for it – the idea that given the right combination of bike, trail, sunshine and the coming together, just for once, of our limited skills and technique and we too could look just like the shiny, happy ones. And even better, our mate will catch this miraculous metamorphosis on camera for our adoring Instagram followers to marvel over.