Wales Trip Next Week

[baxb]

Evening All,

I'm off to Wales on Monday & will be riding Coed Y Brenin Monday & Tuesday and Nant Yr Arian Friday & Saturday, but haven't Yet decided on where to go for Wednesday & Thursday. I'm staying just outside Dolgellau, & am thinking of either riding the various Mach trails at Machynlleth or should I go to Betws Y Coed to ride Marin & Penmachno. Has anyone ridden both ? Which do you prefer & why ?

Cheers Guys.

[Master Mischief]

Rode Penmachno in the morning and the Marin in the afternoon over Christmas (drove from Leicester & back). Seriously cold:



Everything froze (mechs etc) and we were riding on sheet ice a lot of the time so I believe that reading. Will be a lot different now but...

Marin is basically a long and dull climb, mainly on fire roads, with a few interesting bits on the way then an awesome few km downhill. Really good in the dark!

Penmachno is more remote and more of an up-down-up-down event. Probably not the same ultimate thrill as the Marin but a more interesting ride.

Both combined are around 45 km and about 2-3 hours each plus driving time. I recommend this!

There are no facilities at Penmachno.

As for the Mach 1, 2 or 3 I rode one (the 3 I think) a few years ago and it was more of a wilderness ride than a trail centre and was a bit dull from memory. Not work the 16 mile drive from Dolgellau IMO.

There are plenty of rides at Coed-y-Brenin although the Beast covers most of them. Still worth a few days to learn them though.

Maps are OL17 & OL18 if you fancy planning your own.

I am off to Dolgellau in July and Betws-y-Coed in August and have been looking for a proper wilderness ride but not really found anything so if you do please post it up.

Finally, for curry try the Lemon grass in Dolgellau.

Jon

[chrisga]

We did a similar trip at Easter Bank Holiday. Rode Penmachno and didnt really rate it (it snapped my frame on the fire road at the end and I hold it totally responsible - not the 8 years of abuse the bike sustained before that). Then we went to Coed-Y-Brenin which is probably my favourite trail centre, as to me the trails feel the most like the big natural rocky riding that I am used to and love from the Lakes.
If you are near Dolgellau, check out climach-x. Its not a very long trail and will probably only take you a morning or afternoon if you drag it out but its pretty good. Quite a bit of fire road to start with but that gains you height quickly for minimal effort with a few bits of good singletrack off the side of the climb. Then you get to the downhill bit at the end which is very good. Just watch out for some tight corners and switchbacks!

[baxb]

Thanks Chaps,

I am driving up from Colchester on Monday, so the plan is to ride MBR Monday PM & the Beast on Tuesday, so the Climachx route looks like a good option to give my legs an easy day on Wednesday ! Jon, have you ridden the Syfydrin Trail at Nant yr Arian ? a great big loop out into some fabulous coutryside with some very quick doubletrack descents & plenty of singletrack. One of our gang made it into MBR's injury of the month page last year after coming off on one of the quick decents & burning his arm on his brake disc:0

[bigrich]

I rode the Syfyrdin trail earlier in the year. Did it in stty weather, so wasn't ideal but did enjoy it! There's a bit of road riding envolved but as long as you can look past this its worth the trip.

If you check out the trail map you'll notice that there's lots of wet areas alround the trail. I found that these wet areas in poor weather are pretty much rivers!

[Master Mischief]

baxb said:

Thanks Chaps,

Jon, have you ridden the Syfydrin Trail at Nant yr Arian ? a great big loop out into some fabulous coutryside with some very quick doubletrack descents & plenty of singletrack. One of our gang made it into MBR's injury of the month page last year after coming off on one of the quick decents & burning his arm on his brake disc:0

No but I did fancy it when I saw it on MBWales. It seems a long way from Dolgellau (July) or Betws-y-Coed (August) so will probably head closer to it later this or even next year and build a weekend up in that area. We end to stick close to our bases but stay all over Wales.

Could be worth doing Llandegla as it is really good. Quite short but worthy of two laps. It has a real mix of typically welsh trails and (gentle) north shore.

Enjoy your trip,

Jon

[baxb]

Llandegla looks like a good one to try, I think that's Thursday taken care of !

I seem to have the weather sorted for the week, here's hoping I don't stuff the bike into a tree Monday afternoon !

[baxb]

Well, I had a great week & despite getting drowned on Saturday I came back with a tan ! My itinery ended up being:
Monday - Coed Landegla, nice circuit with some great flowing singletrack.
Tuesday - Coed y Brenin, Beast, I'm glad to have done it but to be honest I endured rather than enjoyed it, won't be in a hurry to do it again !
Wednesday - AM ClimachX, first climb a bit of a drag, but well worth it for the singletrack once you are up there & the final descent is , had a case of deathgrip hands after that ! PM Coed y Brenin - Cyflym Coch, A nice little run if you have a spare hour, it takes in Dreamtime, Uncle Fester & the Pink Heifer.
Thursay - Lay on the beach at Barmouth to give my poor aching back the day off
Friday - Met friends up for the weekend & did the Summit train at Nant yr Arain, despte the 'Leg Burner' this is my favourite short trail.
Saturday - Nant Yr Arain, Syfydrin. A great trail for an all day ride (well, all day when you are as slow as us lot !) But was a miserable day & we cut out the final 5 mile loop as we were soaked through & I couldn't feel my feet at that point.

Jon, it took me just over 45 mins to drive from Dolgellau to Nant Yr Arian, maybe it's close enough to consider for your July trip.

[thepickle]

Good effort I did the Syfydrin on Thursday, I've done all the other trails mentioned and it's my favourite (4 times in the last 6 weeks). The Beast is a bit of an effort, even though it's only 3km longer than the Syfydrin there's a lot of trail packed in, the ride out onto the hills on the Syfydrin breaks the more technical bits up nicely imo. I'm just checking the weather to see if it's worth a trip to Llandegla this week, is the full trail open at Llandegla now? (all black sections) Last time I went a few weeks ago, the jumps section was totally closed off and some new trail sections were being built.

[baxb]

All the black sections at Llandegla were open last Monday, I spotted a couple of monster berms being built near to the start of the trail in the woods . Anyone heading to Coed y Brenin be aware that "The beginning of the end" section was closed last Wednesday for a few weeks worth of work.

[thepickle]

I went to Llandegla this morning. You weren't wrong about the trail building near the start! They've done loads of work around the whole trail over the past month. They've resurfaced the hill at the entrance to the car park, much much better now, no craters to navigate around Then on the trail, all that new stuff at the start. The first open section (where the wooden grouse things are) has been totally resurfaced and is a flat path now! Loving that, much better than the unnesseccary rocky section previous. Then, there's the new diversion on the approach to the jumps section, really fast/smooth. Then after the jumps section, I haven't got a clue how it's all going to link up but there is loads of newly built trail down there. Exciting times. I'm not surprised they're doing all this work because the "old" trail is getting really worn I think, there is just so much exposed rock in the trail floor now on all the best bits it isn't as enjoyable to ride as it once was imo.

Edited by thepickle on Friday 12th June 20:51