A ride around the Gorlech this afternoon with the pooch appeared to reveal at least two new sections of trail being built. It is nice to see new stuff being made.

Does anyone know anything else about these changes?

Are these toward the beginning of the route (up the hill from the car park)? If so these are being built in lieu of the closure of the whole of the part of the route down to the little wooden river bridge i.e the first full climb and the descents down to the bungalow, the climb after that and the descents down to the said wooden bridge, to facilitate the wind farm – I think you will now essentially go from the car park straight to the wooden bridge.

here:

http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/mediablob/en/1804112/data/306080/3/rwe-innogy/sites/wind-onshore/united-kingdom/in-development/newsletters/Wind-Power-News-Issue-4-English-version.pdf

My understanding is that the Brechfa East wind farm is unlikely to go ahead. RWE were refused permission for the 2nd wind farm on Llanllwni Mountain and the study for the possible routes for the grid connection showed it to be prohibitively expensive for just the Brechfa East development alone, so RWE have withdrawn their planning application for the grid connection. There’s been no definitive statement about the actual wind farm development itself.
The new route could just be to do with the felling being planned for that bit of the forest, but no one I’ve spoken to really knows (which is about standard for the FC/NRW).

‘Are these toward the beginning of the route (up the hill from the car park)?’

Not there. Go past the first big climbing sections and you reach the top shelter. Then down the swoopy, jumpy fun descent to the fireroad. Cross the fire road and down past the log ride to the river. Look to your left on this section and you’ll see stuff. It is before the humpback bridge.

New stuff there would be great, now if they could just re-instate the log run onto the bridge on Raven I’ll be happy. I know it was old and slowly rotting but the berms they’ve replaced it with are no challenge and kill your speed, but then that was probably the idea as going onto that bridge at mach 1 while balancing on a slippery log was fun in the wet/snow 😆

Maybe Abz is trying DH for his next show?!

It’s daft that Brechfa doesn’t come under the South Wales ranger. The forestry management there always seem really uncommunicative and unhelpful. You’d have thought they’d want to consult riders before making changes and improvements or at least put up some info on their plans. But I will try to find out what’s happening.

Not new stuff, just repairs.

I’m pleased the wind farm isn’t going ahead here.

Not new stuff, just repairs.

Last bit of the descent down to the bungalows, from the log onwards, has been resurfaced, as has the middle bit of the last descent down to Abergorlech. And Abz has erected a panel fence all round his bungalow, presumably to keep the hordes of paparazzi away 🙂

I’m pleased the wind farm isn’t going ahead here

Not definite, but without a grid connection it doesn’t make any sense, so unlikely.

I’m pleased the wind farm isn’t going ahead here

I’m not. I was in for a 250 quid a year bribe payment if it had gone ahead. 🙁