Marin and Penmachno

a few of us are going to Betws y coed in June, staying at the vagabond bunkhouse, On the Saturday we are going to ride The Marin trail in the morning and Penmachno in the afternoon, is there any route that joins these two rides together??

Not as such,although I have linked them together with a bit of the colwyd route a fair few times.It’s a long hard day though.There is a bridleway up the road from the ugly house over to dolwyddelan and another from there that links into loop 2 but its a bugger to follow in places and is usually 2ft underwater due to the mx ruts.Depends whether you like pushing…..a lot.

Wrong way round. Do Penmachno first, it’s a faster, harder and more technical trail that you would prefer the energy for. The Marin has loads and loads of fire road.

It’s only a ten minute drive to get from one to the other so I wouldn’t bother riding from one to the other.

If you’re a regular fit rider you should get Penmachno done in about 2.20 and then the Marin in about 2.30 with some tired legs. Bit longer if you’re stopping round the trail at all.

Really though, there are some nice natural trails Round there.

That’ll be a road ride. it’s not far.

Do the right loop of Penmachno though. I did the boring one it seems. Too many fireroad climbs and bleak tedious moorland XC. Descent bits were nice though.

cheers, i thought do the Marin first cos its more fire road then Penmachno would be a good finish to the day, but im not sure which way round to do them now!! either way will go between them by car!!

Do Penmachno (both loops) then the Marin, if you want an easier finish then you can skip the back of the Marin and do a more singletrack/fireroad loop skip cut across on road obvious on map.

cheers, think thats the way to go

We went to to this late last year, but the weather beat us. We rode the Marin first starting from Betws.
We then came out by the ugly house and went over the bridge and turned right up the road until the bridleway.
Once out of the trees the weather turned biblical and we made it down the fast fireroad to Dolwyddelan.
As we knew Penmachno was more exposed we deff’d it for the day and made our way back to Betws via the superb Sarn Helen BW.

A couple of lads who were with up returned a few weeks later and completed it. Although the section between Dolwyddelan and the Penmachno trail was a bog and it took them nearly 2 hrs to trudge through it.

Not worth it IMO, drive/ride between the two

The route from Betws, over the tops to Dolwyddellan, up the really steep tarmac climb and back over Sarn Helen is a great route in it’s own right.
It’s called Elins Revenge in the Bikefax guidebook and though not gnar, it’s a great way to spend a morning.

Still struggle to clean the rocky climb opposite the Ugly House over to Dolwyddellan first time.

The rocky drop to Dolwyddellan from the fire road and the last rocky bit on the Betws end of Sarn Helen (straight on at the crossroads instead of left) make it a bit more fun, ‘specially in the snow!