[Closed] Afan - all of the trails in one day? doable?

Depends what you class as 'all'

If you mean W2 + BLade... possibly.

If you add in Skyline... I'd be astounded.

done Everything apart from Skyline in one day (as Skyline was shut), easy, even looped around a few of the more fun ones for another run.

Plus there's the newish Penhydd trail. I'd say all that lot would make it a no.
Nice challenge though - possibly one for summer 🙂

Don't forget the Penhydd at Afan ForestPark, there is another 14km to add to the mix.

I guess the logical way of doing it all would be Blade, half of W2 over to Afan Forest Park, Penhydd then the second half of W2. It's a fairly big day out at this time of year. Maybe in the summer with longer days I'd give it a whirl. But probably not.

Last there in April - I think we did W2 and blade took 3hrs53mins 31.9miles 3780ft ascent at an average of 8.2mph. There were quite a few diversions up.

I'm quite a bit fitter than then, and hopefully as running tubeless won't have 4 punctures either.

We've got 7ish to 4.30. Thinking to try and cover the strava gran fondo offroad

(this is all subject to the weather complying of course)

Depends what you class as 'all'

Indeed.

From MBWales -

The mountain bike trails here total over 130km

That's a lot of riding off road, especially given the terrain type.

We did the Karrimor, mbr and Redbull trails in a day, it was a while ago. Think they are still there, just re named?

I'd not bother with Blade, awful trail.

xterramac - Member
We did the Karrimor, mbr and Redbull trails in a day, it was a while ago. Think they are still there, just re named?

Not just renamed, but relocated to South Wales! 😀

I'd echo the comment about missing out Blade. Very poor.

I'm told skyline is closed at the moment. I quite enjoyed the bits of blade I did before (though lots of diversions due to storm damage). The descent was good fun.

We've estimated 6-7hrs to do pen, w2 and blade. Should be doable as long as the weather is okay. If it is really cold and wet then we won't try it.

"All" would be:

Rookie Green and Blue 7.8k

Blue Scar 7k

Penhydd 14k *Penhydd and Blue scar share a climb which you could skip half off on the second lap, saving a 2k climb

W2 (which covers you for the Wall and Whites) 44k

Blade 24k

Skyline 46k *Skyline shares some trail with Blade, so you might be able to skip doing some sections a second-time.

And Afan Bike Park, which they rate at half a K, but if I'd bet my left-nut it's much longer than that if you add them all up.

Which is give or take 150k

Might be better to wait till summer, more light hours and Skyline with be a much shorter loop by then once the Windfarm goes in.

As for the The Blade, I think it's a great trail, sadly the great bits are strung together by lots of long boring featureless bits - so it's like Skyline, only not as bad.

You might struggle with daylight, but we parked at the first centre and did; The Wall, W2, café and then Skyline (cut short and missed out all the boring stuff but still got the descents) and then used the old railway cycle path back to the car.

39.9 miles and 5722ft.

Sure you could if you wanted.

Years ago I did all three of the old CyB trails (Red Bull, MBR, Karrimor) twice in a day, with Gee of this parish. It was 98 miles, about and 16000ft of climbing. Took 11.5 hours.

Reckon Afan would be faster, and it's not as far. The challenge at this time of year is definitely the daylight.

In the summer we started in Afan Forest Car Park and did Wall CLimb, over to do Blade via W2 link, Whites Climb, over to do Wall descent and then did Penhydd . Total was 44.5 mi, 6,443 ft of climbing and took us 6hours (we took it easy and stopped in both cafe's for some fuel!).

Blade is one of favourite trails. I think its excellent.

I've done Skyline, Wall and the old Penhydd in one day....about 90km if I recall and about 6 hours

I did Afan, Brechfa, Cwm Rhayder and Nant yr Arian in a day once. That was a long day.

If you're going to do it, take lights, spare pads as Afan is pretty gritty, and a decent amount of food and energy drink. Go for it 🙂 If you get tired, you can easily bail if you take a map with you.

I normally ride them all when I go in summer makes a brill day.

normaly start at afan going around in the following order
half W2 to other centre
blade
skyline (this is a lot shorter than it used to be)
second half of W2
Penhydd
finally blue scar

takes about 8 hours but my gps only reckons its a bit over 100k (i did miss the bike park and rookie trail but seems a lot less than others are estimating

have fun

I did Afan, Brechfa, Cwm Rhayder and Nant yr Arian in a day once

I'll be starting from afan lodge so midway between both centres I semm to remember. Weather is looking okay and we plan to be out as soon as we can after breaky. We're taking lights too though not sure about my first night ride this season being a Welsh descent after 6+hrs of riding. My buddy is pretty fit and fast but doesn't tend to ride longer than a couple of hours so will see how his legs hold up.

Think the most difficult bit is to try and not get all over excited and head out too fast....

I did Blade and Skyline last week, and I got a bit confused by the map and signs which initially suggested that Skyline is now a loop off Blade, but towards the end they seemed to head in different directions with different descents...

Anyway, it came to about 35km and 1000m of climbing and took 2.5 hours at a steady pace. There was a lot of flat stuff at the top so a good one for tired legs I would say. Very wet and very exposed and very gritty - go prepared!

Bloody hell, that's a serious day out!

It was 18 hours total time, going up the original White's climb at about 11pm in the pouring rain, wind and cold was proper horrific.

Was going to go and do Cwmcarn too, but the drive across really didn't appeal when I was totally smashed.

Good company though.

So, if any one else fancies it... Didn't quite make "all" the trails, as mentioned there are a few new ones since I was last there. Stayed at afan lodge, wall climb, w2link, whites descent, blade loop, lunch at glyncorwg, whites climb, wall descent, some of rookie, finished on blue scar. Just under 6 hrs ride time, 7hr elapsed.

We did have enough light to go for penhyd as well, but the last climb on blue scar was "character building" so we thought we'd finish on a high rather than hurt ourselves for bragging rights.

Absolutely fantastic conditions considering the time of the year really enjoyed it. Several trees are down, including a couple on descents so be careful. One in particular looks like you might be able to make it under at speed. I can confirm you can't. Whites climb seems much harder than I remeber really stuttery lots of square edges which meant keeping smooth was difficult. Blade is really good, didn't notice much fireroad. i was on the absolute limit of what I can ride on my xc 100mm hardtail, wrists were absolutely killing me by the end of the descent.

All in a fantastic day out.

Maybe in summer we will try to add in skyline and penhyd....it is certainly doable.

Just found this thread, which is pretty funny timing as we've planned to do 'all' the trails at Afan on tuesday 2nd Dec. By all I'd add to the above the Rheilffordd trail which is still offroad but is just the railway path. This takes our total miles to approx 85. Wrote a little heads up here: http://mattjonesmtb.wordpress.com/

Will be sending updates on twitter @mattjonesmtb #epicafan

One question you guys could help with... looking at the map for skyline loop off blade, it looks as though if you add on skyline you miss out part of blade, is this right? Chrispo, can you give any more detail on what you discovered? http://www.afanforestpark.co.uk/default.aspx?page=11333 looks like you might miss markers 76-79 of blade?