Coed y Brenin – First Timers

I’m off to c-y-b for the weekend! Never been, our group of 5 has mixed abilities. Not all will cope with big drop offs, jumps and things.

Which trails are the ‘must do’ ones!? I’m thinking MBR.
We’ll be getting there at about 4ish on Friday, so want to do a little trail, with a big ride Saturday. Not sure about Sunday as we have booked for ZipWorld in the afternoon. 😯

Try MBR first, if you get on well with that, try the beast 🙂

I’ve done the beast (or equivalent) with new riders every couple of years for what must be 15 years. Only one trip to hospital so far (and that was on a fire road).

Tarw on the Friday, as it’s fairly short, and does everything the other side of the road from the visitors centre, and then the Beast on Saturday, and you’ll have done most of the trails there.

is Tarw harder (more technically difficult) than the beast?

(For me the grading seems to take too much notice of trail length. Just because its long should that make a trail black?)

I think Tarw is less technically challenging than the Beast, but I love it. Part of that is nostalgia, it brings back memories of when it was the only trail there. We took a newbie to CYB 10 days ago, and he made it round the Beast on a Carrera. He did want to bail after the first section out of the visitor centre though, but we told him the rest was easier 😉

I did the MBR last weekend with a large group of mixed riders for a mate’s stag do. It was fine. We just made sure we kept people aware of what was coming up and things to watch out for. Keep checking people have unlocked their forks if they lock them on the climbs and that people’s QR’s are tight.

Most of them struggled over the rocks at the start of the MBR, straight from the car park so we dropped down onto the blue (minotaur) and did the first section of that to the end of the berms and then went up the road climb from there. That might be a more welcome introduction?

Other bits to watch out for are the toothy section after the loose stone climb (sorry can’t remember what it’s called) and the section that brings you out on the open hillside, descending to one of the bridges; there are numerous large rock steps which are roll-able but do look quite intimidating. And you can approach them at speed, so someone launching themselves off them would probably end fairly badly.

I think the Tarw is a bit less technical.

If the group don’t have cycling fitness, I imagine the Beast would be a real effort.

The first section is an excellent test, if you can’t ride that confidently you should re consider continuing unless you’re with an experienced rider imo.

Loads of nutters standing and even changing tubes in the middle of the trail on descents last time I was over there. 😯

Beast is good fun – but forget the long section out and back just before Gomez…just go up the tarmac onto the fireroad and rejoin at the top of the descent

Stumpy – were you the ones with stag dressed as wonder woman?

AE – in the middle of section with a puncture where are you supposed to fix it? You would just bump into them pushing it down if that is your proposed solution…..

^ at the side of the trail?

on plenty – there is no side…..

No, we’re talking full on oblivious cyclist here, his bike was on its side around a blind corner – there’s always a way to lift your bike off the trail or at least walk until there is.

ae212060 – Member
The first section is an excellent test, if you can’t ride that confidently you should re consider continuing unless you’re with an experienced rider imo.

Yeah. I agree the first section is an excellent test. I believe that is the point of it.
It is always a good idea to have more experienced riders with you, if attempting stuff that is out of your comfort zone.
I think our group appreciated being ‘briefed’ on the next section of trail..

handybendyhendo – Member
Stumpy – were you the ones with stag dressed as wonder woman?

Yeah, that was us! The Stag loved it, once he’d got over the shock. We even had the Wonder Woman theme tune playing to him from the van stereo while we presented him with his outfit.
About 10 of us in total, ranging from very experienced riders, right down to people who last slung their leg over a bike years ago and have never ventured onto anything more technical than a gravel canal path. Everyone made it round fine and I think the less experienced riders did amazingly well.

We got lots of encouragement on the way round as a result of WonderWoman!! Thanks to all who said hello.

I love the MBR its probably my favorite trail center trail. Last time I went I was really looking forward to the nice smooth bermy jumpy bit on the first decent but I was following ae212060 and not my instincts.

I had a look at the maps last night. The Beast looks amazing, but I don’t think all our group will enjoy it much due to length and TTF’s. Are there chicken routes on the really hard bits?

I’m probably going to do MBR on Saturday, I think everyone will enjoy it and hopefully build their confidence rather than scare them.

I see the Tawr Du trail is rated black? I can’t imagine it will be any good for some relatively new MTB’ers? Again do the TTF’s have chicken runs? and will they enjoy it?

The beast is quite long, but there are easy ways to shorten it

Newbies (and probably the more experienced) will enjoy the blue route ’cause its fun and you can ride as fast as you like/can

The features aren’t ‘hard’ as such IMO, there’s nothing that isn’t rollable, but it’s generally rougher and a bit more continuous than most trail centres with a lot of rock which combined with distance starts to make it harder. Certainly not as forgiving as some other centres but not hard.

where are you supposed to fix it?

Anywhere but the middle of the trail.

Had a great time! We rode Temtiwr on the Friday afternoon which was a nice introduction of things to come. Saturday we rode MBR and finished with a loop of MinorTaur.

Sunday we zipped across to Zip World in Bethesda.. Here’s the footage.

The trail centre has maps of all the different trails, with distances and grades so you could do 2 shorter trails with a lunch stop in the middle.
I did the Beast about 10 months after I took up MTB and managed fine fitness-wise but I did get off and push on a couple of the most technical bits.