Hello all, we’re heading to Snowdonia for a weekend in May – stopping off at Llandegla on the way over on the Friday, and looking for advice on another trail centre for the Saturday (we’ll be based in Betws y Coed). Don’t mind driving somewhere, so Antur Stiniog or Coed y Brenin look like the best bets – which do you prefer? Anywhere else I should consider?

I see that AS does uplifts, does CYB? Is the AS uplift worth doing? Am I OK on trail bike (Yeti ASR5) or is a downhill bike needed?

I know that people will say I should go and experience the great natural riding round there 😀 , but I ride in the Peak District the rest of the year, so some swoopy stuff with jumps and berms etc is always a fun diversion from the usual rocky straight-line stuff that I’m used to.

Thanks for any info.

AS only does uplifts, it’s a DH venue.
We did a similar thing a few years ago and did the Marin trail from Bewts-Y, then Coed-Y and then a day’s uplift at Antur.
Won’t be in a rush to go back to Coed-Y TBH. It has lots of fireroad climbs to get the best downhills but just seemed like one constant slog for not too much reward. There are some good descents but not worth all the crappy climbing.
Antur is a great day if that’s your thing.
Marin trail had a much more natural feel to it than Coed-Y and everyone in the group enjoyed it.

They’re both great, and totally different tbh. Antur is uplift only, it’s a good setup- very, very “manmade”, pretty burly/rocky but mostly pretty straightforward stuff. Fantastic uplift btw, I never thought van uplifts could be so efficient and that was even before they tarmacced the road.

CYB is an oldschool trailcentre, I love it tbh, there’s not as much riding as it looks like because they have about 3 names for everything- big chunks of one loop get used to make up others. The Beast is the classic, but it’s all good really. Some of the trails aren’t good “value”, you feel like you’re pedalling up a lot of fire roads for less return than you might expect- but that’s about all the criticism I can make, the trails are excellent. It’s not really jumpy/bermy though.

Ah OK thanks, Antur needs DH bike and full-face helmet to make the most of it then I assume…?

You can ride all of the antur trails on a trail/am/enduro bike , just not as fast as you might with 8″ of bounce. Full face definitely recommended though (required for blacks I think)

Dont forget Penmachno if you are in Betws. And there are amazing natural rides too

If you are staying in Betws. Y Coed then Penmachno is only 15 minutes away. The Marin Trail is a nice afternoon out, but it is very “old school XC” type riding.
Edit. Beaten by brenninbeer.
Flattyres mtb do some really good route guides but the website is down at the moment.

I wouldn’t say so… Definitely no DH bike needed, I rode very nearly everything there on my Hemlock- 160/120mm and normal tyres. I did wear a fullface- I think it might be mandatory on the blacks? But you definitely don’t need it for the blue or red and tbh I’d happily ride any of it with an open face. Except the one bit which I shat it off but that was nothing to do with helmets 😆

It depends on you tbh, some of our group spent the entire day bombing the blue and red (which are not very blue or red tbf, it’s that “uplift blue” thing). I got bored of them after a while and went and did the harder ones, but ymmv.