Want to go to Penmachno trail north wales in a couple of weeks but is it all weather trail?

Yep.

It’s wet all year round 😀

Not particularly muddy though so you’ll be fine.

Ha ha. Thats great. Thanks a bunch

Me last time I rode there

Was u on ur mrs bike?

Yeah, the trail stands up to most weather – gets pretty splashy even in summer! 😀

It is pretty exposed in places too, so you might want bare that in mind if it’s blowing a gale.

Great trail – last mile is a classic.

The builders all now have well paid jobs as irrigation engineers in the middle east. Hub deep standing water in middle of a dry week in July, you almost have to admire the ineptitude of the builders. 20 years of trail center experience in the area totally disregarded. Building an impermeable rock path lower than all the surrounding ground, and don’t employ camber, culverts etc makes a stream bed not a trail.

…and built without the budget of other trail centres 🙄

[video]http://vimeo.com/34329707[/video]
Yep all weather, not found the hub deep puddles before though, were you on a BMX?

The wettest trail I have ever known.

Oh and I’m sure I’ve told you all how close to death I was on the exposed section.

Prepare 😀

My mate reckons on a wet and windy day it’s like being jet washed with cold water for 2 or 3 hours. Tend to go Marin when it pissing down. But I live close so can make a call on the weather,

Everyone so far kind of has a point. Still good fun though

It is like a thrashing Thames in mid July and the trail itself is rubbish! I wouldn’t bother personally.

Just posted the same in another thread but we went there in a late summer heatwave and it still managed to be underwater. The drainage seems to be the wrong way round tbh. (Climachx has some of this too)

What’s budget got to do with it? Ride another trail with your eyes open, or just use google, knowledge is free. Whole sections of the second part are shockingly badly built- flat aggregate about a foot below the surrounding ground, collects and holds water near permanently. Not sure why extra cash would have enabled them to put a camber on it, or stick some culverts in.

Frankly I’d be embarrassed to have been associated with it, and annoyed that all my free labour had been so badly directed. But then, I’d have done a bit of research first.

Mikew, its been a while but from memory sections 2.5, 2.6 and 2.10 (your vid is short loop?)? Rode it last summer, the day after riding the beast and staying bone dry. Shoes took days to dry out. Old skool 26″ not bmx.

don’t think ill b going there then anytime soon, thanks for the heads up

In this it’ll be like riding through a steam pretty much all the way round. I have never been as cold and wet in my life as Penmancho in January. Grim!

from their FB page today

I’ve ridden Penmachno a few times. I’d advise the main loop which is approx 19km. The additional bit (another 11km or so) is pretty pedally, without much payback (though it does offer some stunning view of Snowdonia) and is also probably the wettest bit.

Thing to bear in mind is that Penmachno isn’t an out and out trail centre like Llandegla or Cannock or Coed y Brenin. It’s more of a 50/50 in that in places it is more akin to natural, rather than trail centre, riding. As far as I know it was built, and is maintained, primarily by locals, doing it in their own time. As such it doesn’t have the same level of investment (money, time, expertise) as other centres.

That said, what it does have is some absolutely cracking, hardcore singletrack. By that I mean it is full of rocks, drops, ruts and sharp descents. It has bits of it that are true white knuckle riding and as a poster said above the last mile or so is absolutely brilliant.

My two penn’orth is that if you want to ride some brilliant, fast yet hard singletrack that’ll shoot you out of the bottom glad to be alive and glad to be alive, then you could do a hell of a lot worse than Penmachno. The fact that it is a bit wet in places is doesn’t take away from the fact that it has some absolutely brilliant riding that will properly put a grin on your face. The wetness just adds to the challenge in my opinion 😉