The Gospel Pass (Welsh: Bwlch yr Efengyl) is at the head of the Vale of Ewyas in the Black Mountains in Wales, and it was the destination for Manzone7.

Whilst the local town Hay-on-Wye has fast made itself the capital of the Literary festival, the only thing we’d be reading this weekend was a map, and badly… because we were far too excited about the e-bikes we’d just hired from Luke at https://www.facebook.com/drovercycles

Luke from Drover Cycles – good guy, check out his store!

After a quick splurge of cash, a tasty coffee and some priceless insider knowledge on the terrain and area (Drover Cycles) we hit the narrow mountain road full of confidence that we’d be wild camping on the summit.

The e-bikes were not only a great laugh, but also a great way of getting the logs, water and smiles to the top and so within 3 hours we’d done a recce of the area, found a quiet camping spot away from the Werewolves and decided that next time we’d do it in the summer when it wasn’t -2 degrees!

As it turns out, the Gospel Pass isn’t that much of a beast (on an e-bike at least) because it’s got a perfectly smooth tarmac track to the top. It’s even part route 42 National Cycle Network – good to know for the next trip!

Truth be told the e-bikes made mincemeat of the road and we had plenty of time to get some wicked air jumping off hay bales and for me to win the longest skid competition.

We also said things like ‘rad’ and ‘good skills’ a lot, which was also ‘epic’.

In a flash the light faded, got cold(er) and so we headed back down to Drover cycles where we dropped off the mega dirty bikes to Luke, gave our kit bags a final once over and started the return leg to the top – this time on foot with our packs.

Sadly the late afternoon hike wasn’t quite as smooth as we were joined by the navigation monkey, but at no time was G-Man scarred, and he always looked good.

G-Man = a better-looking Action Man, with better colour co-ordination, a better marketing budget, but sadly only mediocre levels of fitness.