I tried Blade at Afan today for the first time and without doubt it’s the best I’ve ridden. The sheer variety of trail is amazing including some bits I’d say ought to be black graded (waterfall in the middle of a steep rock garden for instance!).
Anyway, are there any other trails this good I should know about?

Unless it’s been rebuilt since last summer, what I found about it was that what makes it great, is the fact that it’s basically fallen apart! Huge amount of water erosion so it’s whack out of grade in places but also really interesting and surprisingly tricky- reminded me more of some of the tweed valley offpiste than a trailcentre trail. Never got to ride it in its as-built state

(reading between teh lines, but there was initial funding, and more funding to follow after the completion of the windfarm so I suspect it was built fast and cheap, with the intention of fixing everything that broke after a couple of years)

Everything looked “on purpose” to me. That said Marc at willow springs campsite said the windfarm had to give some cash over to be built so maintenance may have happened.

Oh, scuse me, for some reason I read “Blade” and just went “Ghost Train” which is the bit which’d disintegrated (lots of deep ruts and holes with terram cloth sticking out the sides showing where the original trail bed was). The flat trails across the top were pretty shonky too but’d obviously been built that way

Lol today was my first time so no idea what ghost train was. I’d recommend another trip though, the trail I rode today was epic if s little wet due to being inside a cloud all day yesterday 😯

I did a little project last year, bikepacking round all the Welsh trail centres and doing one or more routes at each. My two favourite trails were the Blade and…..the double Penmachno loop. So if you like the former, you should maybe look at the latter (honourable mention also to Cwm Rhaeadr).

Cwm Rhaeadr

That is a shit ton of fun!

It is, but in a very different way to tracks like Blade and Penmachno. I like routes where the ‘qualifying feature’ isn’t a little rocky step, but a F@ck off big climb instead. Keeps out the riff raff.

Thanks I’ll give Penmachno a go next time I’m up that way. I agree a huge climb as a qualifying feature is good, although the one on Twrch at Cwmcarn goes a little far with that concept!

if there wasn’t a big climb at Afan there wouldn’t be much space for trails 😆

At least, while long, it’s pretty flat the way it traverses up and there’s plenty of fun bits!

Interesting, got a meeting at Swansea and tempted to grab a couple of hours riding afterwards – is Blade the best one or another?

Blade is the best I’ve tried at Afan for sure. Depends what you like though I guess. If you’re into testing your fear of heights/falling to your death rather than testing your skill give y wal a go. It’s less fun but you can tell everyone how unafraid you were (I’m sure they’ll be along shortly…) 🙂