Discussion
"Things to do at 50 - ride up Snowdon" - *tick*
I don't know why but I've always fancied riding up Snowdon, so Friday night we did it.
Can't say I'd go again, it's only about 70% ridable going up, but going down was a hoot.
Set off at 6pm to avoid the curfew, in the pub by 9:30pm
Snowdon by Samcat MG, on Flickr
Snowdon by Samcat MG, on Flickr
Snowdon by Samcat MG, on Flickr
Snowdon by Samcat MG, on Flickr
I don't know why but I've always fancied riding up Snowdon, so Friday night we did it.
Can't say I'd go again, it's only about 70% ridable going up, but going down was a hoot.
Set off at 6pm to avoid the curfew, in the pub by 9:30pm
Snowdon by Samcat MG, on FlickrSnowdon by Samcat MG, on FlickrSnowdon by Samcat MG, on FlickrSnowdon by Samcat MG, on FlickrWhich pub? The Heights? I've done it on foot in 2 hours 40 minutes, running down (albeit 8 or 9 years ago). What route did you choose for the bikes? Up the back and down the front? The back being the Llanberis path and the front being the Miners track? The ride down from Pen Y Pass into Llanberis is great fun unless you are shattered!! Well done for observing the curfew although you are allowed after 1700hrs. I've seen many pay no regard for the curfew which paints the rest of us cyclopaths in a poor light!!
Great photos BTW.
Great photos BTW.
Stunning, tis on my bucket list of rides too.
This youtube video is excellent on how difficult it looks - What are we getting into? Mountain Biking Snowdon
This youtube video is excellent on how difficult it looks - What are we getting into? Mountain Biking Snowdon
We did Llanberis up and down, my buddy was on a hardtail, but he is a bit of a mountain goat.
It's mainly ridable up to the Halfway House Cafe, then there are some rocky steps that I found too much, push time.
After Clogwyn station we got onto the railway track and that is better riding.
The view from the top was amazing.
Don't let the tarmac road from Llanberis town to the start of the path put you off, that is one steep road, I nearly turned back!
It's mainly ridable up to the Halfway House Cafe, then there are some rocky steps that I found too much, push time.
After Clogwyn station we got onto the railway track and that is better riding.
The view from the top was amazing.
Don't let the tarmac road from Llanberis town to the start of the path put you off, that is one steep road, I nearly turned back!
SwissJonese said:
Stunning, tis on my bucket list of rides too.
This youtube video is excellent on how difficult it looks - What are we getting into? Mountain Biking Snowdon
That about sums up the climbThis youtube video is excellent on how difficult it looks - What are we getting into? Mountain Biking Snowdon
It's fantastic isn't it - especially at the moment with those views. We went 2 weekends back and did it *early* on the Saturday. Up Llanberris and down Rangers (a better descent tbh).
Was shocked at
a) how steep the *very* bottom was (a rude awakening for a 5:30am start)
b) how busy Llanberis Path was by 9:30 when we were coming down the rangers. I think Llanberris would have been unrideable coming down at that time due to the constant queue of walkers.
At least an early start means you can do Cadair in the afternoon.
Was shocked at
a) how steep the *very* bottom was (a rude awakening for a 5:30am start)
b) how busy Llanberis Path was by 9:30 when we were coming down the rangers. I think Llanberris would have been unrideable coming down at that time due to the constant queue of walkers.
At least an early start means you can do Cadair in the afternoon.
I did it back in May when this wonderful weather started...
The phrase 'unmitigated disaster' is often thrown around with gay abandon, but I think it applies here.
Firstly, I live in Cardiff, which is a short 4 hour drive away, so I though, "no need to stay over, we'll drive up and back same day" which is fine I suppose... it's actually fairly knackering.
So we left home about 11am, the plan was this.
Arrive in Llanberis about 3pm - push up the easier Lanberis side, because the embargo / ban / agreement or whatever you call it says you can't ride on the mountain till 5pm.
Arrive at the summit at 5pm, have something to eat at the top, ride down Rangers Path at 6pm by which time most people have left yeah? Back to where we started for a pint at say 6:30pm.
As anyone who has ridden it before knows, I was wrong on a few small, but important points.
1) In the last year or so, whoever decided on the 'agreement' has clarified their position, it's not "no riding before 5pm" it's actually "no bikes on the mountain before 5pm" so whilst I'm not saying it's an easy climb by any measure, it does take longer to push up, which we did, thinking we were abiding by the agreement, when we weren't.
2) Llanberis is a lot easier to get up than the Ranger Path, and the Ranger Path is more 'eventful' on the way down. But, they don't start and end at the same point, far from, 25km far from in fact, so if you go up Llanberis and come down Ranger, you can look forward to a 25km road ride at the end to get back to where you started.
3) Llanberis might be easier to get up, but easy it is not. It's OMFG steep, very loose and rocky (we were told the long dry spell made it especially tough the day we were there). Also at 3pm-6pm it's a never ending stream of walkers coming down 99% cool with bikes, 1% very vocally not, you can tell them by the scowl on their face and the whiff of Kendlemint cake.
In the end we arrived at the summit at 7pm, tired, hungry, out of water and a little disappointed to see the cafe closed, or rather closing and unwilling to sell anything.
But that was okay, the views are absolutely stunning.
At that point we had a very lucky chance encounter with a Canadian Mountain Biker who was walking that day. He told us about the problem with going up Lanberris and down Ranger, oh s
t - but we were in luck, because there was a 3rd way - head down the first 3rd of Ranger, then turn right up a steep, almost invisible path on a grassy hillside between the two highest points and you'll find the 'Telegraph' route, which sounded great, Rangers is very steep, rocky and loose and "hard work", Llanberis is still like that, but a bit pedestrian and you'll struggle to not cook brakes as it's so long and "smooth" (this should be taken with a bucket of salt, it's not smooth, just smooth compared to Ranger) but Telegraph is "flatter" (this is again relative) and actually like a Mountain Bike trail - great.
We headed off, tired, hungry and thirsty, but excited.
I'll add a caveat for the sake of my ego. it was very, very dry that day which made the ground hard and the rocks looser, but the bulk of the part of the Rangers Trail we rode was terrifying. I've been riding nearly 15 years now, I've been to Whistler, I've ridden all over the UK and the Alps, but I was scared. It's just a sea of loose rocks, from stones up to rocks the size of hatchbacks, once you're into it in very, very steep in parts, especially through some s-bends we found and it's an endless row of drops - some are nothing, no more than a 1ft, some are massive 6ft or more, they'll all blind and not being a MTB per-se, some of them don't have anywhere to land. At speed it's terrifying, but going slowly isn't any walk in the park either. It's harder than anything I've ridden at BPW for example.
So 20 mins of riding / tripoding and walking later, we arrive (I've broken a toe by this point) at an almost invisible grass path between the two highest points. Telegraph, here we go!
The start looked a bit shady, it was steep enough to make returning a hassle, and narrow enough to ensure you wouldn't try anyway, but we dropped in.
We'd fked up. We were on a Sheep Trail, that just led to the valley floor between the two points and there's no real trial, by now they jobs fked so we're just heading home now, but it's not the end of the world so much as just disappointing, it's now 14 hours since we last really ate, we're knackered and feeling a bit ill from the lack of water, but the ground is good, roll down to the stream across the 'field', cross that, hikeabike to the farm house we spotted on the way up and we'll catch the last few K of Llanberis trail... WRONG.
Within a few hundred metres my mate shouts "careful, it's getting wetter" before I can call him a silly wker, what looks like a damp bit of moss swallows me whole, I crack the visor on my helmet, hurt my back and now I'm mates with Peat Bog and I can't get out. 30 mins of laughing, swearing and graft later we're now trying to navigate a pretty much invisible peat bog, it takes an hour of leg sapping grunting to get to the stream, another 20 mins of swearing to get over the barbed wire fence and over the stream and an hour to try to navigate some bogs / dry stone walls to get to the farmers yard, which we do just as the sun is setting.
We rode the last few kms with all the enthusiasm of a dentist waiting room, it's all tarmac and a bit boring considering the graft involved.
No pints for us, we're just too tired and anyway, every smelt what 4ft deep in peat bog smells like? You wouldn't want to be out in public put it that way.
Ate too much in a McDonalds somewhere, got home at 2am and spent a week hobbling around with a toe like a balloon.
The phrase 'unmitigated disaster' is often thrown around with gay abandon, but I think it applies here.
Firstly, I live in Cardiff, which is a short 4 hour drive away, so I though, "no need to stay over, we'll drive up and back same day" which is fine I suppose... it's actually fairly knackering.
So we left home about 11am, the plan was this.
Arrive in Llanberis about 3pm - push up the easier Lanberis side, because the embargo / ban / agreement or whatever you call it says you can't ride on the mountain till 5pm.
Arrive at the summit at 5pm, have something to eat at the top, ride down Rangers Path at 6pm by which time most people have left yeah? Back to where we started for a pint at say 6:30pm.
As anyone who has ridden it before knows, I was wrong on a few small, but important points.
1) In the last year or so, whoever decided on the 'agreement' has clarified their position, it's not "no riding before 5pm" it's actually "no bikes on the mountain before 5pm" so whilst I'm not saying it's an easy climb by any measure, it does take longer to push up, which we did, thinking we were abiding by the agreement, when we weren't.
2) Llanberis is a lot easier to get up than the Ranger Path, and the Ranger Path is more 'eventful' on the way down. But, they don't start and end at the same point, far from, 25km far from in fact, so if you go up Llanberis and come down Ranger, you can look forward to a 25km road ride at the end to get back to where you started.
3) Llanberis might be easier to get up, but easy it is not. It's OMFG steep, very loose and rocky (we were told the long dry spell made it especially tough the day we were there). Also at 3pm-6pm it's a never ending stream of walkers coming down 99% cool with bikes, 1% very vocally not, you can tell them by the scowl on their face and the whiff of Kendlemint cake.
In the end we arrived at the summit at 7pm, tired, hungry, out of water and a little disappointed to see the cafe closed, or rather closing and unwilling to sell anything.
But that was okay, the views are absolutely stunning.
At that point we had a very lucky chance encounter with a Canadian Mountain Biker who was walking that day. He told us about the problem with going up Lanberris and down Ranger, oh s
t - but we were in luck, because there was a 3rd way - head down the first 3rd of Ranger, then turn right up a steep, almost invisible path on a grassy hillside between the two highest points and you'll find the 'Telegraph' route, which sounded great, Rangers is very steep, rocky and loose and "hard work", Llanberis is still like that, but a bit pedestrian and you'll struggle to not cook brakes as it's so long and "smooth" (this should be taken with a bucket of salt, it's not smooth, just smooth compared to Ranger) but Telegraph is "flatter" (this is again relative) and actually like a Mountain Bike trail - great.We headed off, tired, hungry and thirsty, but excited.
I'll add a caveat for the sake of my ego. it was very, very dry that day which made the ground hard and the rocks looser, but the bulk of the part of the Rangers Trail we rode was terrifying. I've been riding nearly 15 years now, I've been to Whistler, I've ridden all over the UK and the Alps, but I was scared. It's just a sea of loose rocks, from stones up to rocks the size of hatchbacks, once you're into it in very, very steep in parts, especially through some s-bends we found and it's an endless row of drops - some are nothing, no more than a 1ft, some are massive 6ft or more, they'll all blind and not being a MTB per-se, some of them don't have anywhere to land. At speed it's terrifying, but going slowly isn't any walk in the park either. It's harder than anything I've ridden at BPW for example.
So 20 mins of riding / tripoding and walking later, we arrive (I've broken a toe by this point) at an almost invisible grass path between the two highest points. Telegraph, here we go!
The start looked a bit shady, it was steep enough to make returning a hassle, and narrow enough to ensure you wouldn't try anyway, but we dropped in.
We'd f
ked up. We were on a Sheep Trail, that just led to the valley floor between the two points and there's no real trial, by now they jobs fked so we're just heading home now, but it's not the end of the world so much as just disappointing, it's now 14 hours since we last really ate, we're knackered and feeling a bit ill from the lack of water, but the ground is good, roll down to the stream across the 'field', cross that, hikeabike to the farm house we spotted on the way up and we'll catch the last few K of Llanberis trail... WRONG.Within a few hundred metres my mate shouts "careful, it's getting wetter" before I can call him a silly w
ker, what looks like a damp bit of moss swallows me whole, I crack the visor on my helmet, hurt my back and now I'm mates with Peat Bog and I can't get out. 30 mins of laughing, swearing and graft later we're now trying to navigate a pretty much invisible peat bog, it takes an hour of leg sapping grunting to get to the stream, another 20 mins of swearing to get over the barbed wire fence and over the stream and an hour to try to navigate some bogs / dry stone walls to get to the farmers yard, which we do just as the sun is setting.We rode the last few kms with all the enthusiasm of a dentist waiting room, it's all tarmac and a bit boring considering the graft involved.
No pints for us, we're just too tired and anyway, every smelt what 4ft deep in peat bog smells like? You wouldn't want to be out in public put it that way.
Ate too much in a McDonalds somewhere, got home at 2am and spent a week hobbling around with a toe like a balloon.
Edited by P-Jay on Tuesday 24th July 16:34
P-Jay, wow. Quite an adventure!
Without wishing to sound heroic: I'm not sure if it is because we often rode around the "natural" rocky trails north of Manchester, Dark Peak, Lakes, Wales, natural trails in the Alps etc. Before we did Snowdon, but I don't recall the Snowdon Ranger being *that* hard. I was on a hardtail on flexible 130mm forks and fat tyres (pumped hard to avoid pinch flats, pre tubeless) and rode everything other than a gully in which my front wheel got stuck. I don't recall any 6' drops!
Maybe people who are used to modern trail centres expect there to be nice smooth surfaces, clear approaches, landings and features to slow you down?
There are harder tracks in the Lakes.
The Llanberis track was rideable for the most part too.
Telegraph pass now looked to have a paved trail up to it from what I could see the other week.
Without wishing to sound heroic: I'm not sure if it is because we often rode around the "natural" rocky trails north of Manchester, Dark Peak, Lakes, Wales, natural trails in the Alps etc. Before we did Snowdon, but I don't recall the Snowdon Ranger being *that* hard. I was on a hardtail on flexible 130mm forks and fat tyres (pumped hard to avoid pinch flats, pre tubeless) and rode everything other than a gully in which my front wheel got stuck. I don't recall any 6' drops!
Maybe people who are used to modern trail centres expect there to be nice smooth surfaces, clear approaches, landings and features to slow you down?
There are harder tracks in the Lakes.
The Llanberis track was rideable for the most part too.
Telegraph pass now looked to have a paved trail up to it from what I could see the other week.
Edited by MC Bodge on Tuesday 24th July 18:25
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