A short illustrated article of mine is in the cycling emagazine, Seven Day Cyclist.
I ride on top of Offas’ Dyke in this piece, meeting the Chester Deva Divas and a BBC morning TV presenter. This little lane is my favourite stretch in a lovely part of Wales kind of between Chester and Wrexham and I’m among 1200-year-old landscape shapers.
I discovered this stretch by accident 5 years ago when riding near Treuddyn in North Wales. I found a wonderful signposts that runs goose-pimples up any history
buff’s neck:
Amazingly, the lane is so narrow that traffic has to be allowed in one direction at a time, controlled by lights – EXCEPT for cyclists. Traffic is warned we might still be in the way!
The lane perches on top of the original ridge with a ditch on either side. I can’t find a spot to capture the two parallel ditches because of the bushes and trees – even in winter. Fun to ridge this roller-coaster lane, needing all your gears and downhill freewheeling courage as the road approaches Llanfynydd. A pretty village surrounded by breathtaking countryside. As the road approaches Frifth you could divert under an abandoned railway viaduct and explore the ruins of old lime kilns as I did with my pal David Wrigley.
The lane leaves Ffrith to travel through a dark wood and emerge onto a junction. Left is downhill back to Chester. Right is uphill to Minera, Coedpoeth and for the brave, on to World’s End. In this photo a demonstration that photos lie and don’t show how steep roads are, but look at the body language of these racers in the Mark Cavendish Sportive race 
Chester to Chester in 2015. I was an observer!
Nelder News
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY
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