My second trip in the last 4 years and probably my last.

First trip (new to riding), thought it was ok but nothing more. Second trip (took the HT to spice it up) and try as i might i couldn't find a single feature that was well designed or exciting.

Every possible opportunity for air time seems to land you on another jump, the actual jumps are worn out and considering it was a nice dry day i seemed to spent a lot of the time traveling sideways on a strangely greasy surface.

The massive piece of woodwork which no doubt took some building just fizzles out to nothing and the slippy logshore is just a pain the arse (especially if the person in front has to walk as they have no choice but to pick their way along in front of you.)

All in all not my kind of thing but i will admit that me and the wife have spoilt ourselves by going to all the scottish stuff (maybe Tillhill should too before they build another trail). And maybe Llandegla just has no natural features to use?

On the plus side

The pump track looks like it will be superb and no doubt the skills area will be good a place for peeps to progress and have some tuition.

The whole place is well organised, there was a race on and we had no probs parking and no trail closures.

Cafe was great, freshly cooked burgers outside with salad and grated cheese was impressive and cheap.

A good place to take a newbie but the bit i enjoyed the most was heading back to the car park using the sides of the trail to play on, it felt almost like snowboarding!

It's not my favourite place to ride either, but a lot of folk love it.

i thought the opposite,i dont think they are jumps but more like pumps,the corners and berms are well placed so you can really hold your speed,

we rode it fast and didnt once slip out,i think they have used the terrain really well so you dont feel like your climbing at all and you dont need your brakes to much ,it was like an oversized bmx track

i think it depends where you ride normally, if it's quite flat with downhill bits lasting only seconds and trails are seprated with lots of road bits then LLandegla becomes much more desireable as it's all the thrills in one space, but if you come from a good mountainbike area it'll seem a little tame, i like it for the first reason (although i hate the log'walk' bit too)

Lock, we rode as a very mixed speed group so lots of waiting around didn't add to the flow. Agreed that pumping is the answer but you need to know the place a little better and with much more exciting places to ride i won't be going back.

Agreed mugboo. First went 3 yrs ago when trying to get the GF into riding so it was fine for that, been about 4 times since on a HT, part of a large group and as a very early morning fast blast with a very fast mate to make more interesting but still felt underwhelmed. As you say it's always well organised and the on site facilities are great.

All the above IMO though as I'm sure lots of people think it's great including lots of fellow teambadders.

Can't really agree with op, rode Llandegla last Sunday for only the second time and really enjoyed the place, loved its berm-jump-berm-switchback nature and as I went faster found the smiles grew broader (plenty of grip here too – unlike bits of Whinlatter). We had ridden the Beast at Coed y Brenin the day before and my riding buddy said he much preferred Llandegla, I wouldn't go quite that far personally but I think it makes for a fun few hours and I like how it feels very different to other trail centres.

I've recently moved down from North of the Border, and compared to Scottish trail centres found it a bit naff. I find long portions of it dull, it too busy, and with a bizzarely high chav count.

HOWEVER, the topish black bit is one of my favourite trail centre runs anywhere; pumpy, fast with very little margin for error on some of the bigger or off-camber jumps – love it! For that reason I keep going back, I kind of look at as training cycle with a ten minute buzz and a good burger at the end.a

Been a few times agreed that it has some good flowy bits and one little steep climb, but the logs are the worst outside NF at grizedale still have the mental scars from that one…………I think gisburn woodwork far better but llandegla has some good sections, compared to scotland very tame.

Rode it last Friday after having done Glentress and Innerleithen a couple of weeks before.
No, it certainly doesn't have some of the techie bits of GT's black, or the drama of Inner's final downhill section, but it's a fun little route – if a little short, and we had a whale of a time playing on the jumps in the new skillz section.
Best cafe of any trail centre too, really friendly staff, good food and reasonable prices. Probably more the sort of place to take inexperienced riders to, but still enjoyed it.

Me and some mates sampled a few centres in Wales early this year (Llandegla, Afan – The Wall & Whites Level, Cwmcarn)

Llandegla was probably my least favourite of them all (though I still enjoyed it) there was some really nice fast flowing pump like sections through the woods which I would love to visit again. Probably not worth the 2+ hours it took us to get there but if it was more local I would most likely use it quite often. (If I could avoid the park/ride fees which I found steep).

Forking Our Souls – Inners is my favourite centre out of them all I have visited, the descents are simply superb and well worth that first punishing climb

Agreed on the surface, it seems a slight amount of damp makes it lethal and I@ve tried on everything from fire XC pros to mudmad DH tyres. Panned myself flat out on a night ride there on an innocuously smooth, simple flat bit of trail?!

The "jumps" are not jumps, they're more like pumps – I dont think any of them weredesigned as jumps (if they were they failed) other than the little black section and the two short wooden sections in the original black that provide a good launching site.

It's good for a quick blast, it's not technically difficult but it serves a purpose. All trail centres can't be everything to everyone.

Lots of new stuff coming next year.

Agreed, different strokes for different folks, anywhere that busy must be doing something right.

Funny thing is though loads of riders still turn up with armour and full face lids on bikes more suited to Scotch and Alpine terrain. Still attract lots of new riders, you can spot them easily they're the ones wandering around looking for the lavs

Its just not a 'stw' kind of trail centre.

I agree with Mugboo, I didn't enjoy it. But some folk will.

mmmmmmmm.
i think it may get more interesting over the coming months

Think more late spring….

Think more dissapointment….Dylan

thing is… i think the 'jumps' are awesome. treat it like a large bmx track and pump everything… i,e keep your wheels on the ground, but force more and more speed out of the undulations and its an awesome course.

huck off everything like a 12yr old and yeh, no doubt they will spit you all over the place. but then you are never gonna get proper (jumping) trails on an xc loop, and if you think some of the jumps on the other xc loops accross the country are big or propper then you are kidding yourself. so many 1ft shallow lips where you huck to flat…

I think the number of riders you see on the hired Orange bikes tells you the sort of trail centre it is, and it shouldn't be criticised for it.
There's more than enough to give experienced riders a bit of fun, and if you ride the red route the way it should be ridden – like a very fast cross country circuit rather than an all-mountain adrenalin pumper – it's a great ride.
As I said, it would be my first choice if organising a ride for less experienced riders or novices, because it's all do-able, the facilities are first class and the rental bikes are spot on.
And as for complaining about the car park fees, FFS! 3 or 4 quid for a day's entertainment??? This is coming from people that think nothing of dropping £1500 on a frameset! If you're not prepared to put a tiny bit back, you've no right to be riding it.
It's about an hour and a half drive for me, and whilst there are more demanding rides closer to home for me, I learnt loads on the drop-off and jump sections in the skills park, so it was well worth the effort.

Thought you were going to Blue Planet Chris you grumpy old bastid.

Could ride the 'awesome' jumps on the 'awesome' course on my 'awesome' bike dooooooooooooooooooooood.Or I might go back t'bed.

Or maybe your laser powered hoverboard. Mun.

rode it last Thursday night in low cloud…try that cos low visibility ups the excitement no end!
Agree the log shore is crap and surfaces greasy but great for newbies apart from that

lots of wild stuff out the back of it to explore if the centre bores you!

….if you have no qualms with riding on footpaths.

only ridden it once, but its very close to my inlaws in chester and i can sneak out early on a sunday morning get a quick no hassles blast round it and have a nice burger at the bbq cafe and be back doing the family thing by lunchtime, ill be doing that the next time we are visiting

its not the most technical but fast and the bike shop and cafe are excellent i quite like that juddery woodwork bit, its an acheivement to ride it all, or are you lot just bitter cos you cant ride it

and anyone whinging about paying for trail centre parking can go and stick to towpaths

it is very busy but i think its gotta be a good thing getting all the locals welsh, scouse etc out riding their bikes rather than sitting in the pub watching footy

rule change, its now called cheeky trail.

As long as you play by the rules-http://www.cheekytrails.co.uk/ethics.htm

😉

What's wrong with the log shore bit then? Just curious as it didn't bother me – it was a bit slower, balancy and bobbly and I dabbed once. So what?

Agree with Mugboo – I reckon it's dull as dishwater. Some folk here seem to take massive offense when you express your own opinion, like they built the trails themselves. Sure, plenty of people enjoy the place,and in that respect it's cool, but no one can argue that plenty also think it's unbelievably boring, sanitised riding – I'm one of them.

I like it.
For a time strapped Dad of two its great for a 2hr blast.

I bet its pretty good in the dark.
Do they still have Night rides there ?

it is very busy but i think its gotta be a good thing getting all the locals welsh, scouse etc out riding their bikes rather than sitting in the pub watching footy

I think that's what the trail designers were after. Not to impress us MTB gods on here but to get families and newbies out and in that the centre has been very successfull.

However after doing that I thought the idea was then to expand the black runs to offer more of a technical challenge. OK they've expanded the so called black run but its really just more red with more steep uphill bits and they've scattered little jumps all over it which completely spoils the flow (doesn't help that I don't jump). I guess the idea is to keep speeds in check.

I'd rather ride the red route a couple of times than bother with the black.

Was back there recently after three years away and I'm glad to say the cafe and shop were still up to their high standard. Shame about all the tree felling that's gone on on the west side of the forest as it completely spoils the feel of the trail but I guess that's what forests are for.

Do people really struggle with the logs?

8 of us went to Llandegla the other week for the 3rd time in 2 years and a that's 2 hour drive each way to boot. We all love it and to be fair we're all a bit crap at jumping. It's just a bit of something different.

And for anyone wanting to question my/our judgement, we have Dalby, CyB, Sherwood Pines (hmmm???) and then every single ride we do in the White/Dark Peak every Thursday evening/Sunday Morning as our yardsticks.