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With the return of Penhyndd and the addition of Blade there are enough trails to make "all the reds in one go" a proper challenge. I've ridden all the trails in one go a couple of times when they were at their previous full extent (mid 2000's?) which meant doing the Whites/Skyline climb twice.
The western side of the area is straightforward to plan: Penhyedd is linked to and from the Glyncorrwg side by W2. The Eastern side is more complex. Looking at the Blade/Skyline map there does not appear to be a way of doing it without doing the Whites/Skyline climb at least three times without missing a significant amount of singletrack. Due to lack of brains I had to resort to drawing a schematic "tube map" to work this out, strangely it appears that the Blade Trail does not exist as a unity; one has to go around twice to ride it all.
So:
Does the new map show "as built" and am I missing an obvious solution?
Secondly, to anyone who is interested and has an opinion, can we settle on a convention, create an ITT route and Strava it at some point.
Are you trying to ride it all only touching the trails or are you trying to cover every part of the trail and maybe use some fire road/cycle path stuff?
You can do penhydd and blue scar (i know its a blue but its loads of fun), do the whole of the Wall, then ride back up to Tramway on the wall, carry on the fire road missing out tramway and nantybar, until you come to picadilly then ride the W2 link over to Energy, keep riding past the start of energy until you come to a left turn up a hill, this will take you past the end of the black run and up to windy point. Follow the signs for blade, you can add on the additional Skyline loop if you want, then follow blade all the way round back to Glyncrowg then ride Whites all the way round back to Glyncorrwg, black run included.
Ride down the cycle path to Afan car park.
The only sections you would miss would be the 373 option. Thats it. I can map it for you if you wanted.
Hope that helps.
Has anyone got a map of the Blade & Whites trails in different colours on the same page?
@PhilWarren
That sounds like a mammoth day out. Can I have a map of that if it's not a hassle (I [i]think I follow so if it is a pain, don't worry. I'm sure I'll figure it!).
M
Are you trying to ride it all only touching the trails or are you trying to cover every part of the trail and maybe use some fire road/cycle path stuff?
The latter, I was trying to get the most, if not all, of the singletrack without too much repetition and the minimum of climbing. Keeping to the marked trails was to make navigation easier.
Thanks for that, yes, that makes sense.
Blue Scar is a bit "trail centre McDonalds" to me but it's going in. Doing it the way you describe means I can start with, say, Penhydd and finish with Blue Scar.
I have not ridden Blade. I am just going off the pdf map but that section does not appear to be that straightforward.
Doing what philwarren11 suggests does sound monsterous! Thats 5 climbs and will be in the region of 12000ft climbing 8O, (doing Blade, not Skyline!). A tough day out, but I'm sure some plonker will do it!
Dont do the final descent to the car park when doing blue scar first, after the bridge (the same bridge that penhyddy uses) turn right up the fire road, this takes you back up to the end of the first descent and back up the main fire road to continue doing Penhydd.
Dont do the final descent to the car park when doing blue scar first, after the bridge (the same bridge that penhyddy uses) turn right up the fire road, this takes you back up to the end of the first descent and back up the main fire road to continue doing Penhydd.
Ta.
I'm sure some plonker will do it!
Oi! 😉
This is exactly what I was trying to work out yesterday, nice one Philwarren11 (I am that Plonker!)