I'm visiting family in the South of England (Berkshire /Wiltshire border) tomorrow and am taking a bike with me. I've ridden the Marlborough Downs a fair bit over the years, although I'm always up for new routes. Anyway, I fancy heading in to Wales at the weekend, I've ridden Cwmcarn and BikePark Wales a couple of times before. I'm thinking of maybe heading over to Afan, or doing the 'classic ride' from the mag starting near Talgarth.
Any opinions on either, or other alternatives appreciated.
Brechfa is fantastic, but it's down past the end of the M4.
Afan is great, I rode Penhydd at the weekend after moaning about it for years, it's actually riding well at the moment.
Expect off-piste to be very wet at the moment.
I love the Trail Centre at the FOD, it's in England of course, but I think you'd still cross the bridge.
Closest is Forest of Dean by some margin, but there are less marked trails there than Afan. Depends if you are happy to explore off off piste or fancy some uplifting to make use of the dh runs at fod.
Afan is loved by many but from the two trails I’ve done there (Whytes and Penhydd) I just can't love the place yet. I need to do some more of it to see how the other trails are.
I did Brechfa a month and a bit back and loved it. There is a lot more tree cover than Afan and more variety in the trails I did. There’s a black trail and a red that you can combine into one big 42k circuit - it was hard going on the ups towards the end but there was so much variety in the downhill sections it was well worth it.
Interesting thanks. I haven't really heard much of Brechfa before but it looks / sounds like somewhere that I'd enjoy. Google maps suggests that it's a 3 hr trip each way so I might have to look in to overnight accommodation and make a couple of days of it.
It's a lovely venue, trails probably see 10% of the traffic as CC and Afan, they're 100%, man made, but hide it well, so you could be fooled into thinking the last few sections of the Red was formed due to the passage of sheep and wind/rain erosion, it's just blind luck they combined an seemingly endless row of table tops snaking down the hill with tight loose berm at each end ha ha.
Just bare in mind, it's not a centre, couple of disgusting portaloos and a decent pub.
Quick update. I rode the Brechfa red & black combined earlier and they are indeed fantastic trails.Thanks for the tip!! Even managed to keep avoid the rain.