The road from Llanidloes to Machynlleth gets a lot of billing as “The Mountain Road”. Even the road signs say “via narrow mountain road”. As I turned left for Machynlleth just beyond the delightfully-named Staylittle I was amazed by the width.
It was here I met Richard and Phyllis.  I stopped in a layby to take a photo of the view down the Dylife Gorge. They were parked higher up in the layby. After taking a photo I wandered over and asked if they’d mind taking one with me in it. This led on to an offer of a cup of tea, which I gladly accepted.  (My first free cup of tea of the trip was from Dot, a resident of the leisure park near Builth).
Beyond Dylife there was a road narrows sign, and it did get somewhat narrower, but there was still room for two cars to pass without difficulty. The County Council needs to apply to the EU for funding to upgrade the signs to match the roads.
Earlier in the morning I had passed a very old sign, one that said “Unsuitable for Motor Vehicles”. It certainly was. Whereas many farm tracks have two bands of tarmac with a strip of grass down the middle, this had a narrow central band of tarmac and two gullies either side deeper even than Oxfordshire’s potholes. Sustrans followers with vertigo would be advised not to use it. This would have a better claim to be THE Mountain Road, if only it were a road.
My average speed for today was 9.3 mph. Yesterday it was 8.4. Abergwesyn to Tregaron is THE mountain road.