Yay Rob, glad to see your trip came off and is going well.
Just back today from a week’s attempted skiing with my boy. We did manage 4 days on snow out of 8, by travelling to Val d’Isere – great resort.
Kid’s a lot better than me on 2 sticks that is for certain!!

Glad to see you started a thread about this and you’re meeting up with STWers on the way. Great stuff.

May be a lot of free riding time in my future. But then again there may not 🙁

Can’t guess where you’re off to next in your itinerary, so will check in and check it out. You didn’t take a camera??

Another great day then and quite a contrast of riding! But rocks? We don’t get those in the South. 😯

Looks as though you’re being well-fed and watered. 🙂

bunnyhop – you Northerners are tuff with those hills!

Looks as though you’re being well-fed and watered.

Rob ended up feeding us, he was the only one to bring jelly babies on the ride, and banana flavour soreen, OMG how yummy is that, but bestest of all he gave nbt some very nice beer.

Hopefully we’ve given Rob a taster of the Peak/s and hope he’ll come back for a proper Dark Peak ride when next visiting his brov.

c_g – you are welcome anytime (its not all rocks you know), however we have virtually no singletrack 🙁

Wed 27 Penmancho

Drove across from Manchester to North Wales to visit Penmancho on a recomendation from NBT.
Lovely little village and a small car park to start off from .
Really nice track once off the fireroads . Very narrow and well made sections of singletrack . Very hot again , and after a few miles i was wishing i had put a Nuun tablet in my ‘bak.

Did part 1 , was looking for part 2 , and missed the turn . I then did a little free stylee along the road to village and up this awful road climb up the intersection.

Rode around part2 . Amazing views looking north up the valley to the wind farm. A buzzard flew off from a tree right in front of me , loosing altitude to gain some air speed. Rather big when only 10ft away.

Rejoined part 1 and recompleted that bit of the loop again, another chance to ride the superb last couple of sections down to the car park.

At CYB now , riding there tomorrow then south to Afan.

Lord give me strength…

The beer, man, the beer!

WHO IS LOOKING AFTER THE BLOODY BEER?????

Could be child’s face, is all I’m saying. 😐

Flod, my unable assistant is attempting to make beer whilst i am away .
Last time we had to throw away 1500 gallons of beer as he mixed the wrong 2 chemicals and we dont want another Bopal do we ?

Glad you enjoyed it after we sang it’s praises so highly. We’re off that way tomorrow, managed to find space on a caravan site down the road!

we had to throw away 1500 gallons of beer

(Sobs uncontrollably at the horrific thought of it all)

😥

‘Flod’? 😕

we had to throw away 1500 gallons of beer

Pure Gold too, IIRC. ❓ Flod indeed.

Thur 28 . Day 12 . Coed Y Brynen.

Stayed at the Cae Guy farm in the B and B . A good location if you are thinking of riding at CYB . The campsite seems adequate and the owners lovely.
They will even give you a lift to the local if you ask nicely
Rode the Dragons Back trail solo . Some really really flowy , swoopy parts and well designed around aged trees so some root balls to deal with .
Very hot again . horrible on the fire roads . I dont normally take my lid off , but on most of the climbs the lid and gloves came off.
Managed to just about not to stop at the half way cafe when i saw the Walls ice cream sign.
Didnt realise how much of it was the Beast , with some added fire road loops (pointless , .- the guide calls them sociable climbs . . great when you are on your own )
Really enjoyed the drop down from the high point on the munsters named sections
Left mid wales around 14.00 to head to Afan

We try and miss out that pointless climb up the fire road and then back down a fire road too. Hot for us as well yesterday, but I caved in and did spend half and hour at the mid way cafe. Agree that the munster sections are great.

Have you finished the tour now?

Gonna try something different at Afan? Or just do it all?! 🙂

Home now , so a little report on the last few days.

Arrived at Afan and set up tent at Bryn Bettws lodge. They need to spend less time building a ‘world class 4x track’ out of boulders , and a little more time on sorting toilets and showers for the tenting fraternity.
Drove over to Brechfa on Royal wedding friday and rode the black loop .
Some errosion caused by braking spoilt some sections, but it was bone dry , loose and running realy fast. Those huge berms just beg you to wang it in way too fast , crank it over , and pray the front sticks. Nice small group of 7 so we made good progress and totally avoided the wedding .

Sat = day 14 . Rode W2 on another hot day , fortunatly there was a strong breeze which took the worst of the heat away . 1 of the SMA regulares Jim had a big off on the wall, and landed some 30ft down the slope , cuts and bruises but nothing broken , apart from a modded rear wheel that resmebled a pringle.
Starting from Bryn Bettws is nice as the track runs alongside the campsite , but its a biatch of a climb after a stop at Glencorag back up to the top . Drank about 4 ltrs on the day but had fun, possibly on the best days riding

Sun = day15 . Cwmcarn on the way home . Didnt really enjoy the loop as its up up up , along , then down ,fast.
Think time spent on the skills / freeride area would improve my jumping ability , but one thing i did learn on my day with Jedi was beware cros winds as they whip away your front wheel , and it was very gusty up the top . Loved the next woodland section after that , had a clean full speed run down the pedally section parrallel to the rode . Gave it full beans and despite riding it blind, was fully rewarded with the ‘riding god’ eurphoria you get when you have expelled all your energy and ability ,survived , and spanked your mates.

Coffee and cake in the car park then home down the M4.

So 15 days continous riding . The least milage was a lap of Newcastleton, the most Red at Inners followed , by Red at GT . Although i think its almost the same as W2 .

Hardest .- Black at GT , solo, baking hot , and no wind worth mentioning .

Milage . Rode in the region of 250 miles . Drove 1720 miles . Met some lovely people .

Sponsored by Nature Valley Granola bars and Bannana Sorreen . I ate 6 boxes of bars, and 4 loaves of malt loaf .

The best was riding with people, riding is great and i love it, but the shared experience of fixing broken stuff, map reading , sharing cake , having a laugh , the banter , racing your mates , rubbing wheels , telling stories, drinking and eating enhances the experience alot.

Sounds fantastic. Not jealous at all 😉
When’s the next one?

Well done Rob!

Did you have good weather as well Pete ?

Bet you loved Scotland , right up your street .
Mr Donne bumped into Brian at Afan as he was waiting for a taxi back to the campsite , and we had done one by then.

The weather was great, couldn’t believe how hot and sunny it was. A bit of a brief visit for us, but out of what we did I preferred ‘Inners’, having a little bit more of a natural feel to it.

Put your feet up now, you deserve it!

Nice one Rob. The worst weather we’ve had up here for over a month was whilst you were here, very unlucky. Glad you enjoyed your trip. Let me know next time you’re planning a trip to the peaks and i’ll show you some proper rocky hilly stuff 🙂

You certainly have some stamina! A lot of miles driven and ridden. Pleased you enjoyed it. 🙂

STW comes to the rescue once again with local people happy to guide around their trails. 8)

Well done Rob, you certainly must be in the peak of cycling fitness.

Oh and thanks for introducing us to the yumminess of banana soreen.

Sambob – can I come too?

You most certainly can. Beasty lockerbrook sound good? MMMMMMMM BANANA SOREEN, still havn’t found any near me 🙁