Cwm carn off piste – where to start from?

So, i rode at Cwm Carn yesterday for the first time in years and noticed that a lot of the ‘off piste’ is now marked from the back of the last hill on the Twrch trail , and around to the side of the last descent to the car park. Do these trails lead down to a decent and easily find-able pedal up track? I have tried searching for any maps but cant find anything.

I didn’t have a good look about yesterday as was with a mate who hadn’t ridden in years and didn’t want to rag him! Is Cwm Carn worth it for an off-piste day instead of FoD?

Trailforks is your friend here.

The easiest way is to ride up Forest Drive from the main car park – it’s an easy spin. You can then do partial laps of Bizzie Lizzie, Wacko, Mayhem etc. (stopping at the fireroad and looping back round) or go all the way down to the canal and back along the path / road to the car park.

100% worth it as alternative to FOD. There are loads more off Piste trails there you won’t have come past too but are an easy pedal from the car park.

Check out Trailforks on a PC and most of the established off=piste stuff is clearly shown

https://www.trailforks.com/trails/map/?nearby=1&activitytype=1&z=14.3&lat=51.62635&lon=-3.11571&content=trails,labels,trails_top,region,poi,directory,polygon,eventpremium,waypoint

If you’re on a normal (non e-bike) the quickest routes back up are quite brutal.

I normally park in the main Cwmcarn car park and pedal up the tarmac Forest drive but then cut off and follow the fireroad to the start of airstream 2 on Twrch. I follow that to the steep concrete ramp then go up the tarmac from there to the off piste. I find that’s a  nice warmup before hitting the steeper stuff. Equally you can go all the way to the off piste on the tarmac if you want to do that.

You can ride it a bit like a non uplifted BPW for a smaller climb – sessioning the top halves to the fireroad and then back up. Then sessioning the bottom halves seperately.

The top half has a steep ish push up at the Wacko end – it goes out of a clearing on the fireroad where some rock has been carved out – did you find that?

From the bottom you can either pedal along and up Darran Road (I’ve not tried this but I think it literally goes straight up the hill), there’s an off road way back up which is also quite hard going – I can pedal most of it but there are a few steeper / loose bits. Or you can pedal along the canal, back up to the Cwmcarn car park and then back up Forest drive.

We did a day of it early 2023 – ended up being about 30km and just shy of 1500m of climbing. I was broken after that, but it was a great day.

From the bottom you can either pedal along and up Darran Road (I’ve not tried this but I think it literally goes straight up the hill)

Can confirm – this is not a climb I would choose to repeat in a hurry!

There is an off-road alternative to Darren Road if you want to make Darren Road feel like a nice option!

I’ve only done the off-piste stuff once and took the Mrs up Darran Rd, I wasn’t overly popular! But I somehow managed to convince her to do it a second time. Trouble is, it’s a long pedal back and up Forest Drive, which is where we started.

As explained, the off piste starts just along from the top of forest drive, near the children’s play area. A few trails go directly from this top area, and some others can be found from the next fire road down. If you do top to bottom, the way back up isn’t signposted, but just follow the fire roads upwards. They are very steep and brutal. Even on an ebike it can be hard work to do more than a few runs before feeling it. Alternative is at the bottom, cross a small bridge and follow the canal path back to the entrance to forest drive/cwmcarn carpark then pedal up the forest drive again. It’s much longer, but spinnable.

excellent. thanks for the advice. Non-ebiker so sounds like  big pedal day out…..but quote happy doing this at Fod so reckon ill give it a go at some point.

Depends how fit you are really I think. I don’t class myself as fit, But I still manage the steeper climbs on that side. They’re also direct enough that if you’re pushing it doesn’t take that long.

I tend to park at Backvein rd. and do a trail or two in Machan, then one or 2 at Mynyddslawen and one or two at Cwmcarn. It’s short roll from the bottom back to the van.

More than happy to show you around that loop, drop me a mesaage on here if you fancy it.