I’ll be in Dolgellau for the weekend and should have time for a quick ride on Saturday morning. What’s the best all round trail for a couple hours riding? My bike isn’t the best for climbing so the more fun flat and dh singletrack the better! Last time I went we tried to do MBR but the signs seemed to disappear halfway round and we ended up joining on to some other trails to get back, I don’t really have the time to mess about like that this time!

When was last time?

The MBR is a good sub-two-hour blast and I’ve ridden it a few times with no signage issues.

Is there any chance you might have just ridden past one and not noticed?

MBR and a play in the skills area.

Last time I went was early 2012 I think. It is possible we missed a sign as my mates crank arm kept falling off so we were a bit distracted haha.

Here you go!

Stages for Round 4 Coed Y Brenin 29th November:

Stage 1: Cain and Abel (6 mins)

Stage 2:Adams Family from top to bottom (7 mins 30)

Stage 3: Beginning of the end into Seven Sisters (3 min 30)

Total distance for loop 17.6km (10.9miles) 554m climbing Approx lap time 1hr 45m

GPX of the route : WGES RD4 CYB Stages and Transitions
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http://welshgravityenduro.com/race-date/coed-y-brenin/

Someone posted on here recently that you can follow MBR/Beast as far as the start of Pink Heifer, do a bit of fire road climbing, then pick up the Addams Family descents back to the VC. Best of all worlds.

That can’t be much more than a couple of hours worth.

^that sounds good to me, seem to remember the add and family stuff was fun. is there a map showing how to get from pink heifer to them or is it pretty obvious?

http://www.mbwales.com/en/content/cms/Centres/Coed_y_Brenin/Beast_of_Brenin/Beast_of_Brenin.aspx

The one you want would be the green ‘escape route’ going off uphill after the False Teeth section – normally you’d turn off right towards Pink Heifer but you keep ploughing up hill until you meet the road, then up again steeply until you get to post 118. You can either carry on up the road (steep) then branch off towards the top of Gomez, or follow the Beast to 119, turn left and contour round on fire road.

Doing the first section of Minotaur instead of Badger/Pinderosa will save you some time on the outward section (it joins the same road just a bit lower down, and is faster/funner).

We were there 2 weeks ago and the MBR trail is what I would recommend for a 2 hr blast.

But I agree that the signposting was much less easily followed than I expected.

I really didn’t enjoy MBR, we used the blue trail to get us past the rock gardens so we could play on Addams Family etc.

I went last week for a couple of hours after a day working in the area this is my route.

Start through the big forks down Pinderosa and before it goes up join the blue for some fun in the berms. Cross first road and continue on blue to next road. Go through car park, cross bridge, turn left along fire road to an uphill right before a gate. Follow round to start of Pink Heifer but continue of fire road, go round gate, through wood and cross stream up a short climb to rejoin red route at marker post. Turn left and head round to Hermon.

At the end of Hermon go up the road passing the cafe and up the hill. Turn right at the sign onto fire road, at next junction left to road, then right and right again back onto fire road to start of Adams family descent.

After the descent you can either repeat Hermon/Adams or go back to Adams by going towards PH but bear left and up the fire road, at Junction turn right and follow fire road round to half way cafe. Third option is to reverse your out journey and pick up the escape road.

A slightly longer version but still within your time limit. From the car park ride up fire roads to get to Brutus and follow MBR round to pick up description from PH above.

It would be easier with GPX but I don’t use such technology. Get some route maps from MTB Wales site and it should make sense.

I’ll be in CYB tomorrow morning,i usually do 20k,couple of hours.
Meet up at the pump track just after 10 if you fancy it.