Just come back from a long weekend in Wales (with car, not bikes - I get enough of frozen feet on my daily bike commute of an hour each way with defrost time in between). Probably won't bother with Black Mountain next trip - the 40 mph limit just feels spiteful on the southern climb, while going down the northern side the road is twisty enough that I wouldn't be going very quickly anyway. After the drudgery of the village section (from Pen y Cae to Upper Brynamman) you just want to let off steam, but the 40 mph limit is a serious buzzkill even if the scenery is great. Liked the Elan Valley road to Cwmystwyth - proper wild and woolly stuff without feeling too brown-trousery. The loop round from there to Tregaron to Lampeter to Llandovery - anywhere else it would count as a good ride, just not as epic as I'd come to expect from mid Wales (scenery less spectacular). A483 and A470 every bit as awesome as I remember, the B roads from Beulah to Newbridge on Wye and from Builth Wells to Brecon (wantz1's favourite) also a hoot. Thanks for the recommendation of Owls Nest Cafe in Llandovery - decent tea stop and friendly folks. We were also glad we did the Bala detour A4212 and A494.
If going up to Bala make sure you do the loop around the lake and the reservoir back to Bala for me it's one of my favourites at speed
I didn't know they'd made the black mountains 40 mph (I've never noticed anyway) it is a much better road if run from the owls nest to Brynamman in my opinion but don't know how you'd fit it into your route. You get a great blast then uphill on the hairpins so you can power into them (I always hate tight bends on a downhill) and then nice (40 ;-) ) open twisty roads with views for miles.
