Wales and The Brecon Beacons day 1.
If you plan to visit Wales on a motorcycle, then a trip to the Brecon Beacons National Park is a 'must do' for your itinerary and this route is a perfect way to do that. This route is day 1 of a 6 day tour of Wales that we rode in September 2018. We stayed overnight in Gloucester to start our tour and I have started this route off from our hotel at Gloucester Quay. Top up with fuel at the pink route point (RP) 2 as the Brecon Beacons are quite remote. This route shows you the rugged beauty and vast scale of the open spaces. It follows the River Usk and the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, it goes alongside huge reservoirs and over dams and across the military road to the top secret German village of Cilieni, whose hush hush military purpose meant that you could never find it on any map! It was designed as a mock village during the Cold War to enable soldiers to prepare for battle with the Soviets. The route finishes at a good biker friendly B&B in Builth Wells called The Cedars Guesthouse, we had a warm welcome and comfortable night.

We stopped at a small cafe at Talybont on Usk for a coffee at RP 10, it is small, so big groups might want to find somewhere else for a stop. Leave your bikes parked at the cafe and walk (70m) just around the corner to the fascinating lift bridge over the canal. The route goes over this bridge and onto the vast open spaces of the Brecon Beacons. The spectacular A4059 has to be one of the best roads in Wales, it certainly is in my book. We were lucky enough to see several Red Kites majestically flying when we rode along it. The Military Road starts at RP 28, this superb road links the villages of Trecastle and Tirabad, it is 8.4 miles long and the road doesn’t seem to have a name, on a map it crosses Mynydd Eppynt and Mynydd Bwlch-Yr-Groes, a small range of hills to the north of the Brecon Beacons. It is a single track road that runs through the Sennybridge army training area and is open to the public except for days when there are Army exercises (check before leaving). You need to turn off of this road at RP 30 if you are brave enough to visit the mock German village of Cilieni, my advice is to keep your head down and don't get caught! We managed to dodge any bullets that may have strayed our way and came down off of the high ground and onto our bed for the night at Builth Wells.
This really is an incredible ride for those that enjoy big open spaces. There a many places to stop to take photographs of the magnificent views. I have not included green route point markers to indicate great views as there would be too many!

Below this review are links to the Hotel and Guesthouse used, a video of the route from 2018 and a link to the route for day 2 of this 6 day tour.