i’m planning a visit to CyB next Monday with my 11yo happy black route rider. we visited CyB earlier this summer and rode on the east side of the road, but what is there on the west?

there be dragons.

On the West side of the road is actually the place where Trail Centres in the UK started. On the West side of the road is the Original Coed-y-Brenin and the Red Bull trail.

Long climb to the first singletrack.
You can ride heart of darkness or the new slab section,all rollable but best to check out a line first.
My 8 yr old has ridden the slabs,he enjoyed them.
Next is Snap Crackle and Pop,lots of rocks and slippery sections,it’s good though.
It’s a a bit of a climb then to the top,then down to the start of Rocky Horror and back to the centre.
It’s a good loop of around 14km,i usually start at the top of Beginning of the End on the east side to add a few Km’s.
Strava loop here

It’s a mutation of the original Red Bull (that’s had a few modifications), and the original start of the MBR. Some of the Red Bull singletrack doesn’t flow like a modern trail centre, so reqires a bit of concentration to keep you going, the MBR section used to be awesome as long as you were fit enough to attack it, and keep the hammer down for it’s full length without crashing.

The few bits of singletrack track up until the top of the hill are ok. Highlight of the whole trail is from when you start your descent down from the top. Really, really fast singletrack descent followed by a short double track bit but once it dives back into the woods, the next section over all the rocky, built up stuff is great. Hitting that fast you can get some proper flow through it although I suspect its one of those trails that if you ride it slow could be a real chore. Then a short’ish climb up for another LONG singletrack traverse/descent back to the road.

Great little trail and because its overlooked, whenever I’ve done it I’ve basically had it to myself. Last time I did it I got 3rd overall for the entire loop according to Strava 😀

yeah snap crackle and pop is good we looped back and did that section a few times!

I love it tbh… But it’s a bit like the Marin, it’s not “good value”- the return on the investment in pedalling isn’t as good as you often get at more modern centres, and you have to put a fair bit of effort into some of the descents to get them to click. I don’t care about that tbh but it does seem to bother some folks.

I agree with Northwind, what your putting in doesn’t seem to be rewarded on the downs, one bit sticks out to me a longish tight bit that sweeps left and is a bit loose in the MX style groove, that was about the best bit, fairly near the top I seem to remember. the route up is mainly fireroad and very dull.

The bottom bits after the slabs is by far the best, we rode that about 4 times which is very pedally but a great bit of trail.
I remember pedalling that on my GT Pantera 20 years or so ago and thinking I was in Canada. Rode it last year on the 3rd day with heavy legs after Penmachno, The beast and MBR with a loop of the minotour.

It is like stepping back in time and there’s not many folk ride it. Half way up I was seriously questioning why I’d even bothered but had to press on just for old times sake.