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Bit of a last minute idea, shot up to afan, solo, after work last Friday, with half a plan to ride all the trails in a day.
My only mtb at the moment is a bikepacking rig, so thought I’d best put some bouncy forks on it.
Turns out there were a few surprises that got me thinking.
Firstly, so many detours, closed sections etc, that it didn’t really count.
Route was:
Up whites and over to afan via W2, lap of each, blue scar and penhydd, back over to glyncorrwg via ywall (w2). Then back up whites climb to ride blade and as much of skyline as was open (not much).
The surprises were:
Haven’t been in years but it’s still as good as I remember.
Not as hard as hard as I expected it to be.
The most enjoyable bit was, blue scar descent!! What??
I only fell off whilst climbing (which I did a lot towards the end being tired and using bloody dmr versas).
The final decent from blade is awesome but not at the end of the day when weak as a lamb.
The hot dogs at the bike park shack are delicious and only £1.50.
It got me thinking though and wondered if any other, long distance motivated, people had thought about linking the surrounding gravel network to make a monster route, that dips into a centre for a trail, then back out on a gravel loop, then a trail again etc etc.? Until all trails are covered and many many miles... or am I just a weirdo for thinking that sounds good?
That sounds ace, I enjoy mooching around the area but have only ridden the marked out routes as I'm not a local and only have a few hours while visiting family.
The burger shack at Bryn Bettws is great, well it has been every time I've been although with all this lot I've not been to Afan since last summer.
Good effort, not that I know anything about Afan.
Back when I wasn't round I had a hankering to do CyB in a day. It was a little convoluted as I didn't do every named trail separately but I also didn't just do all the singletrack. In the end I settled for RedBull, Beast, Dragons Back and Afon.
Cyb in a day is next on the list!
I think that will be harder?
In a similar vein, I have done one trail descent each at CYB, Climachx, and NyrA in one day all linked up with country lanes, fire roads, bridleway etc. I remember on the last descent at Nant feeling like I was in self preservation mode.
I quite fancy doing something similar in the South, maybe linking Wentwood, Cwmcarn and Afan. Will probably wait until the Skyline is fully open.
I've done both Afan and CyB in a day, Afan was quite a bit further, but I think CyB was harder as a higher % of single-track.
See if you can get a route for the 'Afan Monster' it was an event about a decade back, all round there, all off road, but using many of the routes that are not trail center routes. Started over on the Neath side of the hill.
Cyb in a day is next on the list!
Tell us more. Do you mean doing all the bits if singletrack or all the multitude of named routes?The former would be pretty easy, the latter extremely challenging.
I’ve done both Afan and CyB in a day, Afan was quite a bit further, but I think CyB was harder as a higher % of single-track.
Tell us, all the physical trails or all the named trails individually?
All the physical bits of trail, so e.g. the beast covered a lot of the MBR and Dragons back
It got me thinking though and wondered if any other, long distance motivated, people had thought about linking the surrounding gravel network to make a monster route, that dips into a centre for a trail, then back out on a gravel loop, then a trail again etc etc.? Until all trails are covered and many many miles… or am I just a weirdo for thinking that sounds good?
Plenty of locals will have done similar, I suspect.
Last November, a few of us rode over from Swansea, through Baglan Woods, over the top of Masts and into the Afan Valley. From there up the Wall, north on the logging roads and finally dropped in the the Neath Valley and home to Swansea. We rode past excellent trails at Baglan Woods, Masts and Afan, so people dropped in and out of trails depending on what sort of bike they were on. (Masts is very unsuitable for most people on a gravel bike!)
We have a rough plan to do the same ride, but link over the hills off-road west as far as Lliw reservoirs and Cefn Drum (near Pontardulais). That will be a strenuous day. 😀
I'm not so bothered about linking all the trails in a trail centre, though, just the good ones, or convenient ones to make a good loop.
I did CyB in a day.
Stats were: CyB
106km
9hr moving time
2,673m of climbing
4,855 calories
I started on the Blacks, then worked my way down to the Green. Even that was a struggle at the end 🙂
Interested to hear how much of skyline you rode? I'm planning a similar ride and haven't ridden skyline in years, but looking at ridelogs on trailforks over the past month loads of people have ridden the original big loop and not the abbreviated version as show on the NRW trail card on mbwales.com. As far as I can tell someone rode the whole thing just a couple of weeks ago.
Bits of Skyline were closed when I was up there a couple of weeks ago. Easy to divert around on the gravel road though.
The original Skyline is technically ridable but not officially yet. I had a thread about it and rode as much of it as I could just over 2 years ago (under my old login that I forgot the password and couldn't reset) here. Can't wait to ride it again but I'll wait until it's officially open. I'd recommend everyone else does too so as not to damage any work the volunteers have done.
Cyb in a day is next on the list!
I think that will be harder?
I did CYB in one night a while back and have done Afan, CYB is by far the tougher one. The night one was due to being on a 'day' off in the middle of a run of night shifts, started at dusk and finished an hour before dawn, took just over 10.5 hrs in total. Surprisingly I wasn't the only rider on the hill!