Going to bike park Wales for the first time soon.I won’t ride everything in 1 trip so which are the must do blue/red trails. Normally ride trail centre reds glentress,whinlatter or hamsterley and confident on these but not great with drops. What do you recommend and which ones can I avoid.
Do you like more natural or man made? You can probably have a go on all the reds and blues in one day and you'll figure out what you like best for the next visit.
Haven't been for a couple of years but there were no drops over about 2-3' on reds so no worries there.
For me (and I understand everyone's different) but places like BPW where the trails have been designed for mountain bikers, it's all about progression. You know all the drops (at least on Red and Blues) are designed for average Joe riders, all the features are do-able, so why not give them a go?
Anyway, my favourite non-air lines are; BLUES: Sixtapod, Willy Waver, Melted Welly, Terry's Belly RED: Roots Maneuveres. I think all the other reds have airtime.
My favourites when I went were insufficient funds (very jumpy with some drops) and A470 for the jumps. The riders right hand side was closed when I went so couldn't do terrys belly etc.
Did rim dinger and was less of a fan but some of the technical runs are great, just can't remember their names.
If you don’t like drops then avoid the red section which goes off a blue - think the red is called locomotion or something like that. I was surprised at the size of the drops / how blind they were coming up to them. Nothing I couldn’t handle, but that seems an odd choice of place to put it as an option off a blue.
Watts occurring and Ac / Dc are red plus. As I remember both have quite a few drops / jumps scattered about.
Hotstepper has lots of little drops I believe but can’t remember what they’re like.
Bonneville has an awkward looking drop off a fireroad - it’s not enormous but it’s off a funny shaped rock and has a bumpy run out.
Everything else is pretty much drop free from memory.
Oh - vicious valley has a small drop off the wooden platform at the top but I think you can roll it if you don’t want to lift the front off it.
All the blues are just flat out fast - I love Willy waver (I think that’s the one I mean) - it goes off the halfway fireroad and is basically an enormously fast pump track down the hill. Loads of big sweeping berms and lips to go off into the air of that’s your thing.
I haven’t tried any of the blacks.
TBH just start at the blues and work through 'em. They have a pretty helpful thing where they've graded the trails in order, and also sorted them- sort of- into "flow" and "tech". It's imperfect but it's better than nothing. Don't be put off doing the commute over to Popti Ping, Terry's Belly etc, they're well worth the effort even though it's a bit of extra pedalling.
(the "mix" trails are all a bit erratic, there's really good riding but they're hard to read so it really takes a couple of runs to get the best out of them... so if I was going to say "miss this trail" it'd probably be those)
You can definitely ride all of the blues and reds in a day but it takes a little planning and effort, and you do end up re-riding some just to access others. I've usually done this gotta-catch-em-all thing but I'm not sure it's best really, probably makes more sense to focus on what you like. The short trails especially down near the bottom after the tunnel are a good way to taste test other grades/styles.
(One thing is, their trail "qualifiers" are terrible. The ones on vicious valley, dai hard and A470 in particular are just the worst qualifiers ever, completely unlike the rest of the trail so they put people off unnecessarily and don't even do the qualifier job at all. Just ignore 'em completely. Ride around if need be. I'd never normally say that)
I'm in a similar boat to the OP, I don't mind drops, just not blind ones.
All the blues are fine, just go easy at the start and end of the day, the speed catches a lot of people out, they're mostly smooth, wide and easy to read, it's just the speed.
Reds are a mixed bag, quite a few now have those step-down jumps which are sort of drop-like.
If you wanted to practice your drops, Wibbly Wobbly has a row of them on a straight ish bit of trail that they use for their Drops Course. They look bigger than they are, but they're all rollable.
Thanks for the replies so far. Lots of good advice. Keep them coming.
Take it easy. Don't blow yourself up on the first few runs.
Depending on what you like, some of the black runs are just fine. I dont have the confidence to hit the jumps of A470, but the slower twisty blacks are great stuff. And as above, the qualifiers are rubbish and tell you very little. Dont worry about walking around the big double at the top and then taking a chilled run down to see whats actually there. Just be mindful of bigger boys and girls who are coming up behind you at speed.
Warm up on an easier run, but dont expect to build up and up and up all day. Youll be exhausted. Ramp up your technicality before you get tired, and save some of the easier ones for later in the day?
Be smart about stopping for lunch. The busses stop for driving breaks over lunch, so try and time it to get on the last bus up before lunch, and the first one out after. You can waste a run if you spend half an hour stopped looking at a feature just before they knock off.
And dont expect to wear a full face all day if youre not used to wearing one. Twice now ive gone off in a Full face for the first two runs, ruined my neck muscles and had an uncomfortable afternoon in a normal helmet.
Check out the website - trails are rated as flow, tech and grades... do the ones you prefer. Flow get more jumpy as the grade gets higher. I prefer the flowy blues and the techie reds. Can’t go wrong really. We usually warm up on Terrys Belly, nice n long.
Then just wing it.
Back there with my son in Aug, can’t wait.
You’ll tire more quickly than you realise. East and drink enough. Be careful about “one more run”.
A470 is a jump line but from memory - caveat that it may have changed - was lots of tabletops so not too bad compared to insufficient funds that has lipped drops on which you can’t see the landing and can be quite scary. The qualifier for Bonneville is also much tough than the rest of the trail.
Popti ping is funny, nice blue but I recall thinking they’d carved the last lip to send you skyward quite a bit for a blue!