I’m wondering which trails on the map are worth riding in the upper Sirhowy, Ebbw and Blaenavon valleys. Not looking for anything really technical, just wanting to get across the mountains. Any suggestions? Some of the candidates seem to turn into footpaths.

There are lanes crossing up & over into each valley … just Google street view them.

For what it is worth (but I have tried to verify this online to no avail), I have it on good authority that most of those commons are in fact classified as “town/village greens” and as such are open access for recreation, including riding of bikes. If anyone knows anything about this then it might mean not having to worry about following footpaths and other tracks not marked as bridleways/byways.

It would be interesting – and no-one seems to care whatsoever, which is nice. The trail over Merthyr Common had loads of 4x4s and people all over it but it’s not a RoW on the OS map. There’s also one over the mountain by Cwmbran which looks busy but isn’t marked at all on OS maps.

Common land designation would explain why many of the long distance walking routes seem to end up on tracks that aren’t marked as RoWs.

Just planned a 100km loop from my house in Cardiff through Llangynidr using some of these 🙂

Just done a little bit of research here – common land doesn’t mean right of access. But apparently, most common land has right to roam on it.

Now, on the right to roam page on gov.uk it says this:

But you can use access land for horse-riding and cycling if:

the landowner allows it
public bridleways or byways cross the land – horse riders and cyclists can ride along these
there are local traditions, or rights, of access

Now I reckon that, because so many people use these lanes and tracks across the mountains in the Valleys that you’d have a good case for access via that last clause.

The track up from Cwmtillary onto Coity Mtn is a good one, with one short stretch of steep rockiness for interest, and leads onto grassy tracks along the ridge. You can find your way down the Blaenavon side from there.

There’s also a nice track running down past the quarry on the opposite side of the valley to the Tumble. That drops you fairly easily onto the railway path between Llanfoist and Brynmawr.

The Manmoel Common road is also a pleasant non-technical outing.

Thanks PhilO.

What about the bridleway that goes up the ridge of Coity Mtn from the South? Possibly from Crumlin if you detour around the canyon on the road?

I havent been up there for a good while now, but you dont need to use the road to bypass the Canyon, there was a track straight through the woods. The bridleway up Coity is ok to use, though it can get rutted and roughed up in parts from motorbikes. If you find The Whistle pub on Google maps/earth, and follow back up the Coity, you can just about make out a track that will join the pipeline bridleway, you can follow that down to close to Blaenavon, depending where you wanted to go from there.

The commons up there are deemed to be urban commons which have pre crow act rights of recreational user – not on bikes though but I doubt anyone is going to have much of an issue with you using paths or sheep tracks.

The locals are probably just happy I’m not in a stolen Vauxhall Corsa.