Got a day on the way to BPW next Saturday, we were planning Afan but the closures may kill that plan off. So thinking maybe Cmwcarn, but only been there the once, many many years back.
What should we do... some adults and several young teens.... they want jumping more than anything else.
Thinking now it may even make more sense to head to BPW and just pedal a few of the half ways instead.
I’ve not been to either yet, but if you’re after jumps near Cwmcarn look up Mountain View Bike Park and Van Road trails.
Forest of Dean trail centre if it's not to out of your way, it has a good mixture of everything, DH, jumps and trails. Climb/push up is easy too. I'd prefer Cwmcarn but that hasn't got what you are after on the 2 main trails. There is a new blue there but I've not been up for over a year so can't comment
Forest of dean would be great. There is a good mix of trails (some jumpy, some tech) and a couple of new practice lines with jumps. You can easily leave the young ones sessioning the jump lines while you do an xc loop (or go to the cafe)
We've been to FoD about 4,000 times in the last year, we're there twice in July already, honestly, much as i love the place, we want something else.
fair point, I manage it once or twice a year! You've probably done the other place near Gloucester too then! 415 Project I think, not been myself though
Plenty of big jumps at the end of the Cwmcarn DH track.
Plenty of big jumps at the end of the Cwmcarn DH track.
Can you session them Jimmy ? Would be good to find a nice bit of trail that's an easy push back up to ride again and again so they can mess about while the grown ups sit by the side and pretend to care about how cool the kids are.
What's at the top of the DH trail ? lol
Yes you can session the last bit of the DH track from the drop off the fire track.
Where the trail turns back left in this map
https://www.mbwales.com/listings/y-mynydd/
The upper but has the rather nice ramp into 90deg turn into tunnel after a load of steep berms.
The trail diversions at Afan don’t sound too bad. I wouldn’t let them put you off going if that was your original plan. I have ridden there and CwmCarn with the family quite a bit recently. The woodwork on Goodwood has been closed for a while, if it is the same diversion then it is the damp trail to the side of the woodwork. The first top loop of Penhydd was shut while we were there, the rest of the trail was open and running well. It is a shame 373 is shut as that is a great trail.
CwmCarn is always good for a day out. Typically we ride both trails when we have the kids with us. My daughter is 12 and we normally take the easy option of the tarmac climb to the top of Twrch, as the single track climb is a bit of a challenge for her in places. I would say the trails at Cwm Carn are more xc style single track, rather than jumpy trails, very similar to Afan really. Well worth a revisit if you haven’t been for a few years.
From the Afan perspective we were thinking Y Wal, from what i can see it's only 373 which seems to be somewhere at the top end so still giving Graveyard and Zigzags, i assume we can still get to the jump park in the middle of there too for them to play....
Yes you will still go past the bike park.
I don’t think of Cwmcarn as a big jump sort of place - maybe the main DH track has some but that’s about it.
Could you fit in an uplift day at Black Mountain Cycle Centre? That massively ticks the jumping box and has a very different vibe to BPW. Less armoured trails - more hardpack mud with huge berms / tables / doubles etc. Epic.
Or if you want to session stuff with no uplift you could look at Flyup 417 at Cheltenham - it’s great for progression although I don’t think a whole day there of uplift is good value vs BPW and the like. Push up is ok though.
Same for Windhill if you’ve not done that much before? Very easy to session jumps there.
I love Cwmcarn and it’s one of my favourite places to ride - a good day is fitting in both reds and the blue with lunch somewhere in the middle. That’s quite a lot of climbing though just to warn you. With Cafell I tend to take the diversion down Pedalhounds from near the top as it’s now a more fun DH run than the main descent which just isn’t as fun as it used to be pre-felling of all the trees. I also often pedal up the tarmac road for Twrch as the technical climb doesn’t excite me - I just want to get to the top and start the really fun descent.
@weeksy have a look here, the official DH track with the jumps at the bottom is call “Y Mynydd” the jumpy bit starts after the lat time is crosses Forest Drive, and finishes at the car park. You can either ride up Twrch or Forest Drive.
Top of the DH track starts at the top of Forest Drive “Medart” hill, the off piste is the stuff heading to Crosskeys, id recommend “Wacko Jacko” or “Mayhem” to the bottom, then ride back along the canal path (or lower road if the canal is still shut” then follow the road back to Cwmcarn.
Or ride the top of Wacko or Mayhem until the join the Twrch trail, and instead of crossing it, follow it back to Cwmcarn
https://www.trailforks.com/region/cwmcarn-forest-drive/
Wyllie bike park is just to the West of Cwmcarn and has some really good runs as well.
https://www.trailforks.com/region/wyllie-bike-park/?activitytype=1&z=11.7&lat=51.61652&lon=-3.15067
Could you fit in an uplift day at Black Mountain Cycle Centre? That massively ticks the jumping box and has a very different vibe to BPW. Less armoured trails – more hardpack mud with huge berms / tables / doubles etc. Epic.
Or if you want to session stuff with no uplift you could look at Flyup 417 at Cheltenham – it’s great for progression although I don’t think a whole day there of uplift is good value vs BPW and the like. Push up is ok though
As we're already at BPW on the Sunday we wanted something a bit more natural and i guess less expensive, we could do non-uplift at BPW but for one of the guys with his 2 kids, that's then £45 extra, which is a lot considering how much we're all spending that weekend anyway, hence thinking of Afan which is basically a fiver for parking. So throwing in 417 or BMCC starts adding in lumps of cash which is a bit unfair.
I still fancy Afan as it's stuff they don't usually ride in terms of terrain as they're more bike park kids than out in the wilds.
@weeksy I think you would probably really enjoy the Pedalhounds DH track on the Northside of Cwmcarn.
This is the DH track from the top of Medart, the jumpy bit starts at about 2 mins, when he crosses the fireroad you ride back up.
Cheers Jim, i'll watch them in a while. You can come show us 😀
We've got 1 guy who's not too skilled potentially who's going, but waiting on confirmation on that.
I might be up that way next weekend, I’ve got no interest in the jumps at the bottom (Although, I do love that 1st step down) but would happily show you the off piste, I’d probably start at Cwmcarn, ride up Forest drive to the top of Medart, do a full run of Wacko and Mayhem, coming back up Darren road, then head over Wyllie for a few, then back to Cwmcarn, for 1 or 2 more. Could hook up for a couple of runs.
Remember, they're all smallies... they've got big balls but small legs.. 😀 plus we're at BPW the day after so don't want to kill them off.
Mountain View Bike Park
Dont look past this, place looks good on IG, lots of size of jumps and close to BPW, do look at @mvbikepark or website: https://www.mountainviewbikepark.co.uk/
That looks ace keith. I've sent to the other parent to get his thought, but i'm well up for that as an option.
mountain view is great for kids that like jumps - take my 11 year old there a fair bit.
Don't forget that CwmCarn has a pump track to session right beside the car park, so that'd probably keep them occupied for a bit.
Sounds like you need to take the lads to Tirpentwys. Basically a big free jump park and not too big a push up. The lads could spend hours just sessioning stuff in the middle bit. Plenty of longer techie natural trails to keep you happy if you wanted to do something else too.
https://tirpentwys-trails.co.uk/