I'd been dreaming of going to Wales on my bike for a while, but practically it's a bit tricky. Generally my day-trip touring style has been to check the forecast wind direction, and then jump on a train to a start point upwind and cruise back home. From Oxford, most destinations around the midlands are reachable within a couple of hours - covering either the away or return leg, I'd used the train to ride to Gloucester, London, the New Forest, as well as to get me to the start of a rather epic (by my standards) peddle from Craven Arms in Shropshire back home (113 miles!). I'd had a yen to go to Snowdonia, but getting into the heart of it seems to take an age by train - only 2 hours to go 2/3 of the way to Shrewsbury, then another 4 to get to Porthmadog! I'm sort of curious to make the journey just to see why it takes so long... This sort of rail journey would eat up a good slice of a day, making it (at least) a 3 day trip.

The Brecon Beacons seemed like a much better prospect. I could take a train to Gloucester with only one change from Oxford (train changes, especially fast ones, can be a bit of a nightmare when you've got a bike). From there it would be an 80-mile odd ride through the Forest of Dean, over the border to Monmouth and Abergavveny, and into the mountains. I would make camp somewhere in the mountains, and cruise down to Swansea the next day after an early start. From Swansea there are similarly (almost!) direct trains, making the return journey reasonably painless as well.

So I find myself on the Friday night hurriedly booking train tickets online. Just after making the booking I examine the road map and find that crossing the Severn west of Gloucester while avoiding the dual-carriageway A40 is surprisingly difficult. The most viable route seems to be to head north on the A417 and then cut SW to the Forest of Dean - adding a good 7 miles onto the distance. For good measure I decide to shell out a further 4 quid and buy another ticket to take me to Lydney, over the Severn and about 10 miles to the south-west. More time to explore the mountains!

My planned route was now a more sensible 65 miles, and the height gain didn't seem too appalling at just over 1100m for the whole trip. Some rapid googling yielded some useful information on camping in the Brecons - wild camping is, in common with nearly everywhere in England and Wales, not strictly allowed in the national park - but responsible camping on high ground above enclosure walls seems to be largely tolerated. If you don't light a fire, don't leave any trace and leave reasonably early in the morning, then (sensibly) the rangers will let you get on with things - at least when the fire risk is low. Sign posts dotted around the park subtly allude to this (or at least I thought so) - they list half-a-dozen activities that are allowed (climbing! picnicking!) and a few that are forbidden (lighting fires!) but make no mention at all of camping. Not expressly allowed, but not forbidden either - don't ask, don't tell...

In practice, off the beaten track and away from frequented paths you would be highly unlikey to run into a ranger (or indeed anybody) in the evening or before 9am. I also gleaned a few sites to pitch camp. The lakes Llyn Y Fan Fawr and Llyn Y Fan Fach in the Black Mountain (on the west side of the Beacons, not to be confused with Black Mountains on the east side!) seem to be popular with the hiking crowd, although they are a bit of a hike into the wilderness. I printed off some OS maps of this area, and also had a look at the the mountains flanking the road from Heol Senni to Ystradfeltte as these also looked promising, and would require less cycling to reach!

All that remained was to put together my kit. One serious problem I had on my last ride and camp was how to carry all my kit when I struck off to find a campsite. Generally I've been leaving my (not particularly valuable bike) locked to something on the side of minor roads, and carrying the tent etc. a good kilometer or so to a suitable place to pitch. Last time I used about four big plastic bags, which was rather unwieldly not to mention looking frankly ridiculous. Clearly this would not do when climbing up a Welsh mountain - apart from the practical problems, if a ranger spotted me I would probably look so amateurish they would forbid me from camping anywhere high up for my own safety. After playing around for an hour or so, I managed to fit my tent and sleeping bag inside my small 25ltr rucksack, and then found a way to lash the mat and an additional bag of stuff (mostly food and beer) to the front with bungee cords. Since there were no attachment points for the cords on the bag, I hooked them to the loop on top and the straps (!). The whole thing is a bit loose until you put it on, pull on the straps and pull the bungee cords tight - then it works a treat. The little bag can pack flat inside my back pannier, and only weighs a few hundred grams at most - and with it I can transform from bike tourist to hiker in a few minutes and carry all my stuff with dignity up a mountain!