[Closed] Short but fun ride at Afan?

Go to the main site rather than Clyncorrwg and ride the Penhydd. 2/3 of the way up the fire road climb you can branch off and do blue scar if your legs are toast. The climb is a boring smooth fire road but the down is pretty good on either.

Penhydd.

<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">If you are on an FS, it's fine, but if you're on an HT you may feel a bit needlessly beaten up by the end.</span>

The Penhydd is the classic hangover trail. Get on it.

Sounds good. I’m on a 170/160mm travel bike so I don’t think I’ll get too beaten up 😃

I hated Penhydd fwiw, I much preferred Y Wal, you can play on the bike park for a bit too.

That said, with 170mm of travel Penhydd might be bearable, I was on a hardtail and it was fracking horrible.

I thought penhydd was pretty poor tbh, certainly the afan trail I enjoyed the least.

With limited time you can go up the Blade climb and straight back down either Blade or Skyline final descents, both are pretty ace and the climb while stiff is entertaining. Weirdly they don't really signpost this option but it's really simple to cut across from climb to descent. Blue Scar is surprisingly good too. I think maybe I could knock out the wall in that time and I do always enjoy it but half the fun of the wall is pissing about, stopping at the bike park and that.

I think our accommodation might be right next to the bike park. Maybe we’ll have a play on there first and see how well the sitting on a saddle goes 😞

Penhydd sounds ok for a ride today - I certainly don’t want to do that climb on Whytes- I’ve done that before and it was horrible. I didn’t find the downhill that entertaining either at the end - it went on for quite a while but it just seemed to go across the Hill quite quickly but without a lot of corners or any kind of jumps for ages.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

We had a quick play in the bike park which was a little bit underwhelming it has to be said.

Then drove down to the car park at the Afan end and did Pennhydd. Bit of a grind in boiling hot weather up the main hill. Some fun bits and some less fun bits. I liked the steppy rocky bits (that would be hard work on a hardtail), I also like the berms etc no matter how rocky the high line in them. There was quite a non descriptive twisty narrow bit in the middle that was a bit overgrown that didn’t float my boat.

Overall it was perfect for today where we didn’t want another epic ride but just wanted an hour or so of bike fun before heading back east.

Been an awesome weekend - the bike needs some tlc after the battering it’s taken. Got a few extra clicks / creaks I didn’t have beforehand. I think my front brake may need either new brake pads and / or a bleed too. But justified after the amount of hard riding it’s been smashed through!

Penhydd is okay, I’ll show my age and moan the old version was better.

Sadly a lot of it had suffered from erosion without any tree cover and you’re left with trails made of rough rock, no rocky enough to be a rock garden, but just enough to make it hard to carry speed and do a number on you.

I found for most of it I could keep my speed up - on the downhill bits especially. My bike is a beast though, not a lot slows it up. My friend was on a Kona Process 134 and he said even though I wasn’t pedalling much at times I was just accelerating away from him. Mixture of bike and pumping features better I think.

Part way round I was saying to him I didn’t think much of the trail but then 3 bits of downhill changed my mind. My favourite bits were a sweeping bermy bit right from the top, and a rocky section where you had a big rock with a drop after it onto a rocky landing. I was launching off the lip and mostly clearing the rocky landing area. Maybe it was called ‘redemption’?

Penhydd is okay, I’ll show my age and moan the old version was better.

It was definitely better. Even the fireroad climb at the start, slowly riding up through all those silent, watching trees, with sleet gently falling on treetops, was better than the new climb.

I haven’t ridden it before. The climb wasn’t exciting and the looseness of the fireroad madebitva bit of a grind. But I prefer that to a climb that steepens and flattens as that takes more out of your legs.

e.g. Cafell at Cwmcarn

It was definitely better. Even the fireroad climb at the start, slowly riding up through all those silent, watching trees, with sleet gently falling on treetops, was better than the new climb.

Yeah, the tree loss sucks, but it is what it is, but despite being very pro-TC, it’s ‘too TC’. Jim Crow is getting better with age, but it’s a fair ground ride, the old trail bits when that section was wooded I miss the most, I can still see them in my minds eye.

I had a horrible, horrible crash on the Old Penhydd, took about a year to get back on the bike, and I just managed to ride it again before they tore it down, but despite that, I miss it terribly.

TBH, I prefer Blue Scar, it’s easier, but more rowdy somehow at the same time.

We decided Blue Scar wasn’t quite long enough even after the bigger day the day before. Plus most of the blues I’ve ridden recently leave me wanting something with bigger features and more rocks!

Brechfa was epic - I loved some of the downhills in there, they felt hewn out of the rock in places. One DH sticks out on the Raven trail where it just swooped quite steeply down the hill through massive rocky turns in the middle of the forest. Loved it.

Also some good jumpy / swoopy bits in another spot on the black and on the red. Just wish you didn’t have quite so much hill to climb to get to it!

Some might say I was a bit overbiked for the ride sat and sun - but the BMCC uplift day justified it on Friday!