Off to Afan tomorrow and intend to try out Blade as not ridden it yet. Thinking Blade and W2 might be abit leggy . I have done W2 a few times and completed it no bother , but with another 24km I might struggle.

Any recomendations ? Be good to do about 30miles / 50km in around 4 – 5 hrs. Although having said that pretty sure I did W2 in 4hrs give or take.

Also any diversions or closed sections ?

Many Thanks in advance

I was there the other week – the thing with W2 and Blade is you have to ride the big first climb from Glyncorrwg twice.

You could do W2 from Afan then not ride down Energy and cut across to Blade by the turbines, then back up and across to Afan.

Nothing was closed that I remember.

GB

We did penhyd in the morning and Blade afternoon on a recent visit, we rode between the centres but I’d drive it in hindsight, providing you don’t have to fully de-kit to get in your car

I found Blade a bit meh.. I’d be doing W2 or The Wall and Penhydd personally

The Wall and Penhydd

Love the blade, ghost train is my favourite section of trail centre i’ve ever ridden, the last descent (not the new mellow one) being second.

We normally round off a blade loop with a whites level loop.

Do blade, go to cafe, eat and drink some beer, get merry for that first climb, nice spin round whites to finish off.

Pretty tip top day out.

I found Blade a bit meh.. I’d be doing W2 or The Wall and Penhydd personally

Agreed. Blade was a big disappointment for me.

Then again, I’d probably just head to Brechfa instead these days. Afan’s on a downer recently.

Any more random opinions on this? I’m heading out there tomorrow. So far… Blade is either ‘Brilliant’ or ‘a bit meh’.

Which is it? 😕

FWIW – I’m probably a bit of an XC-mincer-who-prefers-swoopy-woopy-twisty-fast-singletrack, over all that gnar-rock stuff.

Was thinking Blade + Whites for a groovy day out, but if Blade is anything like Skyline, it probably will be a bit meh.

Did whites and wall a few weeks ago on first trip to bigger stuff, usually ride swinley / Surrey (so I’m probably an xc mincer too), could have done blade too as didn’t find them that demanding.

That probably doesn’t help. But I suppose I’m thinking you could escape off down the fire roads if you get tired!

Might be a bit late but we tend to do Whytes then Blade… does mean doing the Whytes climb twice but a bit nicer this time of year, than when we did it sometime in Feb. Sleet both times! I like the Blade trail, it’s a bit different. But W2 for me everytime for preference…

blade is awesome but mincers probably won’t enjoy the last descent. It’s long and rocky and best when not minced down. I’d do blade first then cake then whites.

Yes… After riding Blade at weekend I can confirm this. Long rocky, droppy lose descent at the end. Not really my bag these days – lost much of my nerve for that sort of stuff! 🙁

The rest of Blade seemed to offer so little in return for quite a fair bit of effort too. Compared with Whites, which asks you to crank up that awesome first climb, but then rewards in spades with a series of lovely fast swoopy sections, for most of Blade I was thinking… ‘So when is the good bit coming?’. For me, it never came. Each to their own thou’.. 🙂

For me the best loop from GC is whites climb, the old diversion fire road up to helter skelter, hokey kokey, jorider then fire road past groovy gulley then back to windy point. Then whites.

Penhydd/blue scar is the worst trail up afan imo.

Sorry, thread hijak! We are going to Afan on Monday for the first time. What would be best route for our first Afan taster? Looking at the comments above and reading the website, W2 seems like possibly a good example of a bit of everything? (Though I’d probably miss the black run out!).

From my experience of several trips to Afan you can’t really beat Whites + Wall (=W2). Everytime I mess with this formula, it just seems to turn out a bit meh. Then again, I think riding the W2 trail you end up missing some pretty peachy sections of Whites, but I could be wrong? Maybe its best to link them both another way, somehow.

The geology over out the valley and up and over on Blade and Skyline seems predominantly wrong for a trail centre – crumbly boggy mush a lot of it, whereas in Glyncorrwg (valley) the trails seem to be all of beautifully hardpacked geology.

Update.
In the end we rode Blade . My 575 rear end decided to break so we rollde back down most of the decent and I hired an Orange 5 650b. Not my cup of tera. Seat post too steep , 40mm stem too short for that bike , bars too wide . It was like a mtbr bike test where they change stem and bars on everything and say how the ride is transformed, Well I didnt ride it before but wished I could transform it back to something else.

Blade is different to W2 , more winch plummet and less flow. Some sections were great . Having crashed on the climb ( about halfway up there is a rock with a hollow on the blindside which is about 2/3 of the width , so I binned it ) and having had a cleat bolt drop off . I could not wang it as I was in fear of my foot slipping off the front of the pedal and getting whacked by the crank . Tricky when your pop style is to drive the bike up and forwards off rock slabs , one footed was not doing it for me.

I also found Blade more tiring than say whites. Maybe im geeting old and fat but no way could I have done anaother lap, not a chance.

Did wish for pads on the last section , but whats with the danger signs and exclamatin marks m Its not that gnarrrrly to warrant it and it just puts you on edge, try and ride it with some flow and don’t worry about the consequences of failure and it will be fine .

Would I do it again , yes , maybe when its drier as there were rivers running down the trails which will lead to heavy errosion.