Got a weekend at CyB coming up. All day saturday and most of sunday to ride. Never been before; which trails should I do?

All of ’em 😉 Beast on one day, Tarw the next, then if you’ve got any legs left ride the other ones til you can’t. Beast takes in most of the 2 main trails (MBR and, er, other one).

Yep, I asked the same a couple of months ago (well how to fill a day anyway).

Do the Beast but maybe consider skipping the long non-singletrack loop (obvious on the map in the north-east corner). There’s a cafe half way round which is a life saver. Make sure you have a go on the the new Blue section as it’s a lot of fun and I think the Beast misses out Dream Time which is a lovely bit but can easily be got to from the Blue.

That will fill one day and cover everything the visitor centre side of the road. The next day you could do the trail the other side of the road or pick out the bits you enjoyed most on day one (or both actually).

I wasn’t too bowled over by the Tarw personally. Dragons back is brilliant though, the beast if you fancy something longer.

timmys – Member

Do the Beast but maybe consider skipping the long non-singletrack loop (obvious on the map in the north-east corner).

That’s good advice, takes off that stupid fireroad loop.

we always do the beast+ so to speak, start the beast as usual then dream time and pink heffer (not onto big doug) back over the bridge follow the fireroad round back on the climb past dream time upto brutus and your back on the beast proper again. After false teeth climb further up fire road and do uncle fester before pink heffer again to big doug…. do the road short cut before gomez as describe above if your feeling spritely at the end of the second time through uncle fester you can do pink heffer for a third time 😀

Did the Beast on Wednesday, as always, absolutely loved it!
Cafe 1/2 way round is hit and miss – closed when we went past.
Some trail diversions, after crossing river on way back – but no single track lost!!

Agree with kayak23, I didn’t think much of the Tarw especially the long fireroad descent near the end – not much fun 🙁 Other than that the Beast is a much better trail 🙂

For a second day I’d consider heading south for the Cli-machx trail (near Machynlleth), which is worth the drive

it’s a shame about Tarw, nice individual sections but a bad trail.

Did the Beast on Wednesday, as always, absolutely loved it!
Cafe 1/2 way round is hit and miss – closed when we went past.

It’s open Fri-Sun but they can sometimes be persuaded to open at other times. It’s also up for sale so might not exist indefinitely.

I was there recently and didnt think much of Tarw either. The annoying fireroad decent was such a waste of height. Shame, as Klunk says, it has some good sections too.
MBR trail was excellent though, would like to have done Dragons back, but didnt have time.
Cli-MachX is good, but nothing on MBR IMO. Syfydrin at Nant yr Arian, is excellent and well worth a visit. Lovely scenery and very quiet. Brilliant decent at Mark of Zoro, but the toughest trail centre climb I’ve ever done after that – Leg Burner. You always knew the end would be up considering you start so high..

We’ve done the beast and cyflym coch today, which pretty much covers most of the trail at CyB, so are considering a trip south to Machynlleth tomorrow to do Climachx. Is it way marked or do we need to sort a map?

have you done Penmachno ? tis only 30 mins from CyB

Climachx is way marked but it’s worth having a map if you can as it’s reasonably easy to miss where the single track splits off from the fire roads at some points. There’s a map here (or take a photo of the one in the car park);

http://www.moredirt.co.uk/trails/maps/cli_machx_trail.pdf

The map in the car park is a slightly more up to date one and shows an additional part which starts at the end of the initial climb and cuts through to about halfway down the final descent. I’ve not done that bit myself but I believe it’s a bit more ‘freeride-ey’ with bigger jumps and a bit of woodwork but that’s only really based on the part you can see as you come down the main trail. I’m sure someone can/will correct me if I’m wrong.

I think its a bit awkward to find the start car park by road (we cycled from our campsite off the main road). You need to head towards Mach, but turn off the road left to Ceinws I think? Its the next left over the river after you have passed Corris. Its then the first left up towards forest.

The ‘freeride-ey’ part you can push bike up to start if you fancy doing it whilst on the decent of the Climachx, its not long. Be warned, the northshore jumps are in a tight wooded singletrack, not a lot of room for error! Also large northshore berm at the end, which has a lip at the start – might need long travel to soak that up, as you dont want to get knocked off line or lose speed on the near vertical wood berm! About 1min in:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiMEIwjTEqA[/video]

ClimachX is a superb descent. Technical, fast, tight. I’ve done it twice now in almost darkness (shorter days) and it was terrifying both times.

Off to do the beast tomorrow – might take your tip and skip the fire-road loop.

Usually do the Dragon’s Back on the Sat then stop at Llangelda on the way back when doing N Wales.

The MBR is great if time is a factor. As suggested above, I can thoroughly recommend Cli-Machx and if you want to ride ‘proper’ Wales go to Holey Trail bike shop in Mach. and get the maps for the Mach 1, 2 and 3. Get out in the hills.