Myself and a couple of friends are heading to south Wales next weekend, purely for MTB purposes. Normally we’d head to Afan but I fancy suggesting somewhere different.

We’re driving out from south east London on Saturday morning and returning on Sunday evening so two days riding.

Cwmcarn is a possibility as I really enjoyed the Cafall trail but beyond that I’m a tourist so would welcome any suggestions please.

TIA. 🙂

Brechfa- Raven trail is good fun, plus another red route. combine the two and you have a good day out. Plus a cracking pub just down the road- Their raven burger is stunning.

Bike Park Wales?

Or speak to the guys at the Afan Lodge- they will give you details for the natural rides around Afan, some amazing trails that will keep you occupied for days!

Well you’ve got Cwm Carn like you mentioned. Cafall is pretty much the only rideable bit at the moment. I tried to follow the diversions yesterday for twrch and ended up lost. I did eventually find the trail and did the last mile or so back to the car park. Definitely would have preferred to have done a lap of Cafall.

Afan and glyncorrwg obviously. Do blade if you havent before, properly brutal trail in my opinion.

The there’s BikePark Wales near Merthyr Tydfil which you can get uplift (although i bet its sold out this weekend) or you can pay £6 for parking and to ride up.

Then there’s Brechfa, thats quite far West and I’m not entirely sure on the status of the trails there.

More XC stuff up in the Brecon Beacons like The Gap route.

And loads of natural stuff all over the place.

Um, given that there’s LOTS of riding in South Wales, we may need to narrow this down a bit….!

Do you want trail centres or off the beaten path (how good is your navigation?)
How far do you want to ride each day?
Any idea where you might be staying?
How techy? Do you like descending or climbing or both?
Etc……………………….

Blaengarw for an hour or so.

See if you can get on a uplift from Afan Valley Bike Shed. Proper off piste.

If you do Brechfa, then do Cwm Rhaeadr, only about 20minutes a lap, but it’s a 2.7km fire road climb followed by a 4km, flat out decent, possibly the best 4km of trail anywhere?

Put it another way, I did 4 laps with a broken arm despite the discomfort, it’s that good.

Great if you’re in a big group of mixed abilities, we just parked the vans as an informal ‘pit’ in a corner of the car park, and people could do runs as and when they felt like it.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, they’re greatly appreciated.

To help narrow things, I would comment as follows:

– BPW is a no-go due to one of my mates (the most competent rider not fancying it). I, OTOH, was there on Friday and can’t wait to go again.

– Our navigation skills are untested apart from one trip to Nan Bield last year where we followed a pre-planned Viewranger route on my phone.

– We’re used to CyB and happy with the reds and blacks there so hopefully that gives an idea of skills/competencies.

– I hate climbing but I love descents. I’m happy pushing up if needs be.

– We’re leaving London around 7am so hope to be on the trails by 11am.

– No idea where we’re staying yet, this is a very “cuffing it” trip.

– I have no desire to do W2/White’s Level/The Wall at Afan. Dunno why, it just didn’t feel that worth it to me last time.

🙂

Tell your mate BPW is a must if you like CyB! Has she/he been to BPW? There’s stuff beyond me there and I like to think of myself as reasonably handy on a bike.

Frankly I’d give the “natural” stuff a wide this weekend, it’s been Arc Building Weather down here for ages, and yes, that’s even by the standards of SWales.

Cwmcarn is great… but as others have said Twrch isn’t worth the trip the moment – the poster above who mentioned geting lost? Judging by his/her post, they didn’t, thats really as good as it gets at the moment and the only thing near there that’s easy to follow is BPW – why doesn’t your mate fancy it? If you’re riding up, it’s very much like a trail centre, especially the blue graded trails (they’re brillaint fun).

Afan is always a laugh, loads of unoffical trails there, but they’re boggy at the moment.

Brechfa is the best though – I live the Red and the Blue, hate the Black but most people like it.

saxabar – Member

Tell your mate BPW is a must if you like CyB! Has she/he been to BPW? There’s stuff beyond me there and I like to think of myself as reasonably handy on a bike.

Agreed, I thought BPW was brilliant, loads of fun. I only did the blues as our day was sadly cut short but I was grinning like a window licker.

P-Jay – Member

Cwmcarn is great… but as others have said Twrch isn’t worth the trip the moment – the poster above who mentioned geting lost? Judging by his/her post, they didn’t, thats really as good as it gets at the moment and the only thing near there that’s easy to follow is BPW – why doesn’t your mate fancy it? If you’re riding up, it’s very much like a trail centre, especially the blue graded trails (they’re brillaint fun).

Afan is always a laugh, loads of unoffical trails there, but they’re boggy at the moment.

Brechfa is the best though – I live the Red and the Blue, hate the Black but most people like it.

We’ll definitely be at Cwmcarn but we’ll be doing Cafall trail (never done Twrch so no idea how good it is). We like Cafall, especially as it’s climb then descend.

As far as Afan goes, have done W2/White’s/Y Wal but felt quite underwhelmed by it. No real reason why though, maybe I was just having a crap day. OTOH, I loved Penhydd.

Looking at the maps, Brechfa might be just too far. I was also wondering about FoD and the Quantocks (okay, not Wales, but this is a MTB weekend so we can be flexible).

🙂

A little Birdie (well Darrell that runs the uplift) that Twrch will be reopening “soon” how soon I don’t know – but they’ve finished with the tress and NRW are rebuilding it.

FOD is great fun, loads and loads of riding there, but given the breif we’ll stick to the trail centre – a good day out there for us is riding Blue, then Red (with the extension in good weather) and pushing up for a go of Launchpad, it’s a DH track, but it’s a very easy one, mirror smooth table tops and big huge fast berms.

If you like Penhydd you can ride than and then tag on Bluescar afterwards by repeating half of the middle fire road climb – it’s a blue graded XC loop so again very low on technical stuff, but it’s fun if you ride it like a holigan.

Bookmark, I’m planning a similar trip. Let us know how you get on.
APF