Staying at The Village Cardiff, (just off M4 jc34) on Thursday night for a meeting on Friday. Might travel up earlier (from Devon) for a bit of a ride Thursday afternoon. Any suggestions where to go, not too far from the hotel?
Could go over to FOD again but I’ve been there a couple of times now and fancy trying somewhere I’ve not been before, which means the rest of Wales!

TIA

Cwmcarn would be the closest, I think.

Cwmcarn is very close, probably no more than 25 minutes?

Snap!

Ok, so question 2…. is it any good/worth the parking fee? (what is the parking fee?!?!)

Cheers btw.

BPW is 20mins from there. No need to book an uplift just ride up.

I love it. Some long gnarly climbs but descents more than make up for it in my eyes

I did consider BPW taxi!!!

Thanks Mark

Edit: Is there a FB page/website or sommat I can have have a look at for piccy-tures and the like??

Not a trail centre as such but Castell Coch in the little village of Tongwynlais just off J32.
Loads of great singletrack round there and it’s much less out of your way than Cwmcarn!

Easy to find your way around Crazy-legs?

Blaengarw is very much overlooked – tis very good. Black is tough up and down. Blue is piece of piss fun times.

I love it

You’re basically at the end of my road there.

Cwmcarn is 30 mins East, Afan 45 Mins West and BPW is 20 mins north.

There’s also some great unoffical stuff a 5 min ride from your Hotel as Crazy Legs said, you’re looking for Forest Fawr, it’s a free car park (and a notorious dogging site if you’re bored after your ride) – no sign posts or anything, officially the trails are unofficially tolerated. Both sides of the valley have lots and lots of short trails you can loop with a lot more if you venture outside the wood.

They range from techie (because I WILL be very wet and muddy to go with the roots and rocks) to smooth (but very wet and muddy this time of year) DH tracks with jumps, doubles and berms.

Strava map is your friend.

Hmmm… sounds like spoilt for choice!
Good job I got a day or 2 to have a think!

Easy to find your way around Crazy-legs?

It’s one of those places that you could explore for hours and not ride the same trail twice, equally you could end up on the same 400m of singletrack going round and round.

Takes a couple of years to actually learn the place properly but there’s acres of “unofficial but tolerated” trails in there and it’s a pretty compact area with trails on both the Castell hill itself and the other side of the road (Rhiwbina side).
Have a look on Strava for the popular segments.

From the Village you can ride down the hill (Longwood Dr) and pick up the Taff Trail, then follow it up to Castell Coch. Also there used to be good cheeky bit of singletrack along the top of the canal which you can get to by turning in left off Longwood Dr almost pretty much opposite the ASDA petrol station.

Cwmcarn is top drawer – best TC I’ve been to. Well worth a visit. Castell Coch etc is good too, but you’ll need to be up for random exploration. However if you have time I’d say Cwmcarn every time. Better than Castell Coch and of course you’ll spend zero time trying to find your way.

I’d offer to show you round for a good local ride but I won’t be back til Thursday evening myself.

Agree Cwmcarm is great. All killer, no filler. Always pop in if I’m passing. You’ve got to like a climb though or you won’t enjoy it! (Although I s’pose you could ride up the uplift road to the top of Twrch!)

I’m sure one of the locals on here was talking about a mega-loop a while back incorporating both official trails, the DH, and off-piste? That would be cool!

Looks like I’ll be spending me evening looking at various options to make a decision and THEN working out what time to leave on Thursday to get a decent amount of ride time!

crazyjenkins01 – Member
Looks like I’ll be spending me evening looking at various options to make a decision and THEN working out what time to leave on Thursday to get a decent amount of ride time!

Given your time restraints and the time of year I’d stick to Cwmcarn or BPW and given that I live about 500m from your hotel and I ride Cwmcarn about 5 times as much as BPW, I’d say Cwmcarn.

Twrch trail is about 1hr to 1.5hrs Cafal about 1.5 to 2.0 but I’m fat and old.

It’s not hard to make a 25km loop out of them, including some of the DH tracks if you want – I’ve got some Stravas of mine doing just that if you want a sort of map to follow, but it’s requires a bit of local knowledge ideally. I do a sort of thrill seekers megamix of the place, skip a lot of the techincal climbs for fireroads and skip some of the bits of the descents that I don’t like to make it quicker climb back to the good bits.

Time constraints aren’t quite as bad as I make it sound.

I’ve got about 3- 3 1/2hr drive to get there i reckon.
I had planned to work a half day and get there around 3ish (means no overtime though!), BUUUUUUUUT I could take TOIL in the afternoon. So drive up in the morning, be there around 12ish and have plenty of time.
Kinda depends a bit on the weather, or check into hotel before riding and have a quick towel off in the back of the van. Also don’t want to back too late as there’s a couple of us staying so cuts into beer-time!
Mainly, though, I could just do with something easy to make sure I ride as the last meeting trip I had a couple weeks back all my intentions went straight out the window!

Just go to Cwmcarn. You won’t be disappointed. Do one of the trails then decide if you’re up for the other.

As to which trail to do first – tricky question to answer but they are both ace.

Will probably be setting off from Forest Fawr car park around 2pm on Thursday afternoon, feel free to join us, probably going for around the 2hr mark.

I’d go to Cwmcarn I think. It runs really well even if it’s soaking wet – it doesn’t turn into a mug slog fest even with horizontal rain.

I’d do Cafell first as the uphill is the hardest / longest. Up to you if you do the full Cafell route, or cut off down the Pedalhounds DH once you’ve got to near the highest point. Both routes are great fun – Pedalhounds gets you to the bottom quicker if you’re tight on time.

Then do the Twych trail – the climb is more technical but much less long. The bit at the top called airstream (left hand of the airstream trails) is mega with big berms and tabletops all the way along it.

I have no more to add, other than I would also recommend Cwmcarn.

Interested in this thread though as I work over the road from the Village Hotel and didn’t realise that there was decent riding on the doorstep…

Weather looks better tomorrow – have a good day OP.

wilbert – Member

Interested in this thread though as I work over the road from the Village Hotel and didn’t realise that there was decent riding on the doorstep…
.

Do you work in the middle of the roundabout? I’ve always wondered what was in there, I keep meaning to drive in for a gander, there aren’t any ‘no entry’ signs but I keep thinking alarms will go off and I’ll be dragged out of my car for questioning.

Well, looks like I have made a decision to give Cwmcarn a try!
I do however now have a small time issue as I cant leave as early as I had planned! Have been given some work to do in the morning as a few others are on a course, so I cant leave until complete. Should hopefully be fairly quick so leave mid-morning if I’m lucky so will still get an hour or 2 depending on traffic getting there!

Coatesy- have PM’d

Interested in this thread though as I work over the road from the Village Hotel and didn’t realise that there was decent riding on the doorstep…

Castell Coch woods is fun in itself but from there you can link up with the rest of Wales off-road so ride as far as you like! You could ride to BPW, Cwmcarn or Afan mostly off-road if you like, on great trails too.

It used to be South Wales Transport Agency in the middle of the roundabout. Assume it still is. A few offices and an ops centre.

Also worth exploring the other side of the A470 from there. Not a long ride to Caerphilly Mountain or the Wenalt either.

Lots of great little runs.

If you’re limited on time then definitely CWmcarn is the way to go. It’s very well sign posted and you can just gonflat out without worrying about navigating etc.

If I only had 2 hours I’d either do the full Cafell trail (without the cut down Pedalhounds DH), or I’d do Twych and session the airstream top fun berms and tabletops session for about 30 mins or so.

I would opt for the natural riding of Castell Coch using Strava to pick out the singletrack downs (and all the ups are on fireroads). It’s approx 5-10 pedal from the Village but if you want hassle free opt for Cwmcarn, I prefer Cafell but either run is good fun.

Do you work in the middle of the roundabout?

No, nothing as exciting as that for me… I’m in the small business park on the other side of the roundabout.

If you’re really struggling for time when you do get to Cwmcarn you can cut the Cafall short and miss out the top loop,turns it into a shorter ride lasting about an hour or so. When you pop out in the fireroad and turn left towards Quadzilla don’t turn right. Continue along the fireroad a hundred yards of so and you’ll pick up the second half of the trail and head towards the final few descents. It’s easy to spot on the trail map and doesn’t actually interfere with the flow of the trail.

Thanks for all the advice guys.
Will print out a trail map (if I can find one) to keep with me and see what time I can manage to get there and see what I can manage to fit in!!