Planning a trip to Cwmcarn later this month. We have not been there before so wondering which trail to do – Cafall or Twrch? Is it possible to combine best of both for a full day out? Cheers

Not really possible to do “best bits of both”, but it’s easily doable to do both trails, if you have all day…

You’ll be able to knock out both in a day. Both great trails.

We were there on Saturday and did both, stopping for lunch at the cafe between the two rides. I have ridden Twrch quite a few times, but somehow it was the first time I have ridden Cafall. I much prefer Twrch and would probably ride 2 laps of that next time, rather than riding Cafall again.

It seemed to have a lot of up and it did not feel like it had as much descending as it should. The sections also felt a little disjointed to me and it did not flow as well as Twrch does.

All based on my own opinion and that of my other half who felt the same – other opinions may vary etc etc

TGO – i was the same, but the Cafalls grown on me. Don’t rule it out again.

Both can be done easily in a day.

Edit: In a morning actually. I’ve got 2hr34m moving time recorded for both but I think it was more like 4hrs…

We did use the fire road for some of it though.

Always been a big Twrch fan and did not really get Cafall till the second time i did it now i prefer it to the Twrch.

I regularly do both trails in one sitting, sometimes I opt for the road/fireroad climbs instead of slogging it out on the singletrack climbs. If you want more choice you can ride down the Pedal Hounds DH (it’s not mental) track from the top of Cafall, it’s signposted so you shouldnt miss it. You used to be able to pedal to the top of the Mynydd Du DH track from near the top of Twrch too, but they were logging around there so it was out of bounds unless you were on the uplift.

thanks for the advice guys. Are there any trail diversions in place at the mo?

There werent on Cafall, or the final (over the last fireroad) Twrch descent yesterday. I only found one puddle on the whole trail too!

I much prefer Twrch and would probably ride 2 laps of that next time, rather than riding Cafall again.

I on the other hand enjoy both equally. Just do both – more miles = more smiles in this case.

both were fully open a couple of weeks ago, both are brilliant trails, ride both.

I would definitely do Twrch first as it is has far more technical climbing, good fun, then the other.
Both are great and doable in a morning.

The ‘freeride’ area at the top of the Twrch (Airstream 1/2) can be repeated by turning back up the fireroad at the end. Worth sessioning a few times.

The DH trails are well worth a look to (think Red+).. you can buy individual uplifts (£3 I think) from the van if they have spaces.

Both are great and doable in a morning.

or an afternoon. You can get round either in less than 2 hours at an easy pace – doing just one fails the ‘more time driving and faffing than riding’ test.

I like to do a bit of a highlight reel of the place.

Start as normal to the ranger station (it’s actually the pay office for forest drive but people call it ranger station) then straight up the fire road to the left (between the proper start to Cafall and Forrest Drive) follow that for about a mile, first left takes you to Quadzilla passing the nasty steep bits, do 90% of Cafall, just before the final section that takes you back down the road, push up the fire road and do the last 2/3rds of Pedal Hounds do to the road, but instead of carrying over back up forest drive till the bend and onto the Twrch, Airwave, Odin etc till the cross-roads, sometimes I carry on the Twrch, sometimes I push up the road to the start of Mojo.

If I carry on Twrch I drop into Mojo at the ‘road drop’ – the last section of Twrch is awesome, but the DH seems to offer twice the descent which seems impossible but there you go.

Takes a couple of hours for me, but it’s a decent shift.