NEW Cycling UK Route: Traws Eryri

Good news, doing this next weekend. Useful there is the official route now  : )

That looks ace, we might look at breaking that into sections at some point so we can explore the route a bit 🙂

What’s the logistics like for getting back to the start? Or is it really a 400km ride…

Jam-bo : my plan is to leave vehicle at Crewe and catch trains.

Crewe-Machynlleth

Conwy-Crewe

Found a rail map. Shrewsbury looks a good option coming from the south.

More of this good stuff, less pick up truck advertorials.

It could work well as a travel and shorter day, long day, then another shorter day leaving time to travel.

I’m definitely going to have a closer look at the full route.

Having done 84 miles of the Pennine Bridleway from Settle to Glossop, it was two long days at 40 miles a day, just for that section.  All fit, just long 8 hour days – left at 10am and it was 6-7pm before we rolled into the hotel each day.

So I can imagine this taking a few days.

Well, maybe it should be Llwbyr Eryi or Ffordd Eryi or something.

Anyhow, it looks nice. 2 days would be pretty full on and I reckon you’d be tired at the end. If the weather is good and trails dry then it’s do-able. It’s not a technical route, just a lot of hills.

2.5-4 days would be nice easy going with a bit of sightseeing. I like the booklet that goes with it as there is lots of interest nearby, especially abandoned quarries!!

Be warned that daytime trains (esp in summer) are VERY busy. Sometimes it’s impossible to get another bike onboard (regardless of booking). Early morning or midweek is a better option.

How hard do you think it would be in 2 days?

A bit harder than the Trans-Cambrian Way in 2 days perhaps. 1.5 to 2 day TCW is quite realistic for an reasonably fit rider carrying their own kit to kip out. Book a bnb half way and carry less gear and it’d be ‘easier’.

Route looks good, some sections I’ve ridden and some new links. And the guidebook is 👌🏻

Good work Cycling UK

Oi @DrP lenzzure new bike for a day….. 🙂

I rode it earlier this year (Had a sneak preview). Took us 2.5days, and was an amazing ride even in crazy wet and windy weather. The descent through the slate mines in gale force winds was epic! Brutal last half day just when we thought it was almost done. Travelling S to N btw.

Planned to get a train back from Conwy to Mach but there was a train strike, so after a much needed lunch in a cafe, we followed a ‘gravel’ route suggested by komoot for our return. This meant another overnighter but was equally brilliant.

In summary; bring your climbing legs and enjoy the views. Allow 4 days for the loop.

Kestevan’s got a couple of vids up on it (considering he wrote the guide book):

I think they’re closing the Barmouth bridge for repairs for a couple of months.

Barmouth bridge is closed until December.

Don’t forget 30p for the toll at Penmaenpool!

When you take the cost of the accommodation, food and transport out of that, it’s not a vast amount of money for three days of guiding, is it?

https://www.facebook.com/share/Y6TMnJ9khoxHLHBc/?mibextid=K35XfP

This Facebook group (the official one) has a lot of info and there are a few taxi drivers posting on it offering transport for the route – worth having a look there.

We’re doing the route at the end of may, really looking forward to it….

Just got back from this, was mostly fun, but I was convinced that Strava routeplanner had done me a dirty and changed the settings to ‘prefer roads’ without me knowing…I even re-downloaded the GPX to check.

A couple of the shots in this article – ‘riding through the woods near Abergynolwyn’ and the ‘rolling through the hillside near Cadair Idris’ seem to bear no relation to the route at all. The first 20 miles is almost entirely on road, including the section passing Abergynolwyn.

The whole of my first day (40 miles) was mostly road, with a shortish section of doubletrack, a bit of the Mawdach trail and some fire-road. This pattern continued on the second day, with a very high tarmac quotient and the majority of the rest being fire-road. I lost faith just before the big looping section in the forest before Betws and diverted to Dolwyddelan and a different route over to Capel Curig that I knew.

I’m not sure if there are access issues which forced the route to use so much road, both up and down – for example up and over to Penmachno, when it looks like you could plot a fantastic route over from Llan Festiniog instead.

IMO it’s not an off-road mountain bike route as such, but a good gravel mixed route. There is probably 100 yards of downhill section that gave me pause for thought on a loaded full suss, so technically there would be very little pushing on a gravel bike.

Very scenic though, a great couple of days, and I’m grateful to those who put in the effort to try to come up with a route.

Some kind of glitch means the article link at the top is broken for me. This might work better

NEW Cycling UK Route: Traws Eryri

We rode it back in May including the two ‘missing bits’ from their website. After some helpful advice from Olly we also added in Y Slab and the first section of the blue at Coed Y. If you are wearing your big boy pants its worth finding the Jubilee Path down to Betsw (we had to push some corners with 40 miles in our legs and on XC tyres).

You cycle past some off-piste fun after Betsw if you want to add in a descent, it was way too wet for us that day though.

With a bit more knowledge I imagine that you can use Penmachno trails to get across the forest but having only been there once we stuck to the fireroads.

Again, following Ollys advice (thanks Olly) we hiked up to enjoy the ridgeline descent off Conwy Mountain, it is cheeky but despite being a beautiful day it was quiet up there and we only met friendly runners and walkers.

We did meet someone riding North to South as he lived near Mach but he said it was less fun. All in all our experience didn’t match martinhutch’s, it was a joyful 3 days of constantly changing views and as always in Wales, weather to match!

My wife took us to the start and met us each night at campsites which made the whole thing a lot more fun. If I’d been carrying my own gear I’d do 4 days rather than 3. There is a Facebook group for this with a couple of people that will pick you up from the end point and drop you at the start and lots of riders stories about where to stay on route.

I rode my Canyon Dude on Jumbo Jims  and didn’t regret it, there were plenty of moments when I was glad of some suspension, I’d hate to climb so far only to limp back down on a rigid gravel bike. For reference, my only other long distance multi-day riding is a Jennride and a CDT.

Enjoy and if you want our routes just drop me a message (if thats working!)