Snowdon, which route?

Looking for some advice and tips on biking Snowdon I am planing at the end of April with a few of the lads.

None of us has ever done our nations greatest height yet but are all compitent bikers. We are descenders more than climbers but not full on DH heads so 6″ bikes all round.

What is considered the best route up and down for the typical weekend AM mountain bike and what tips would you give and can you recomend any accomidation? We are looking to do a weekend up there.

Thanks

Up Llanberis down Rangers over Bwlch Maesgwm (Telegraph).
Antur Stiniog on the other day

As above for the Snowdon route.

We did Penmachno the following day, staying at The Eagles in Penmachno, cheap and cheerful.

Snowdon was awesome, Penmachno was great too … breaking my collarbone wasn’t 🙁

Be careful where you park, police are very “diligent” and car parks (many very small) fill up early.

We stayed at Oakeley Arms Hotel (/pub) outside “Blen Festiniog” in a nice cottage, quite a few bikes there (mtb and motorised). Our trip was walking not biking.

As @Doug has said, all the bikes we saw up there were doing that route.

Up Llanberis, down the Ranger’s Path. Lovely.

Earlier the better. Take pasty money. Shout at dickhead gung-ho DH types. Acknowledge weak but well-intentioned wisecracks from walkers.

Have a blast.

Shout at dickhead gung-ho DH types.

Enlighten me. What should one shout at them?

Ok, this could well be an early season entry into “stupidest question of 2013” but; How much of a climb is Snowdon on an MTB??

We were thinking about spending the morning / early afternoon at C-Y-B, then making an ascent on the Snowdon summit and razzing back down the Rangers after the 5.00pm ban lifts. Is that a bit much in 1 day??

It’s a bit of a trek, especially pushing a bike up, 2 hours work or so.

How much of a climb is Snowdon on an MTB??

About 1/3 to 1/2, the rest is a push.

1.5 hours for me IIRC.

Your plan sounds quite do-able, but allow 2hrs or so for the climb if you’ve done CYB beforehand.

Its funny how slow a bike is up and down Snowdon .The top fell runners do Lanberis to the top and back in not much over an hour 😯

2hrs up, and 30mins down? 😉

Having done the Rangers path I’d suggest up & down the Llanberis, unless you are very skilled on some of the Rangers path you may end up pushing your bike down aswell as up.

1.02.29 is the mens running record .

I’ve gone up after the ban a few times, best to do it in May/June/July to get the daylight.
Usually up in a couple of hours and down in about 20 mins if there are no punctures!
It is really worth investing/borrowing some DH specific innertubes and the biggest tyres you can fit, makes it all more fun and faster.

We’ve always done the LLanberis route up and down due to daylight issues but the Ranger path does look good. How much fun is Telegraph valley back to LLanberis? Better than the LLanberis path?

Double post

How much fun is Telegraph valley back to LLanberis?

It’s alright, bit fast and open.

Rangers is much more involving.

Haven’t done Llanberis down. Is it busy in the summer eves?

Nope, we are deffinately doing the Rangers, i’m breaking out my little used AM bike especially for it…….. 😉

Haven’t done Llanberis down. Is it busy in the summer eves?

It’s been fine when I’ve done it. If you start up at 5pm then the downhill doesn’t really start until 7pm-ish. Most walkers are down by then, and the ones that are left will have seen you on the the way up. A bit of a chat and most say they’ll watch out for you on the way down and get out of the way…most are still quite amused by the whole business!

As others have said, llanberis path up and ranger path down followed by a super fast fun blast down telegraph valley hoping the drain channels!!

With regards to how much of a climb is snowdon……. It’s not all bad, we started off one February morning last year, I’m no lightweight, and no climber, the first Tarmac hill out of llanberis towards the start of the track had me off the bike, pushing, wondering what the hell we had let ourselfs in for, but once off the Tarmac and on to llanberis path it wasn’t to bad, rode just over half of it is guess, keep going to the halfway house, not long after that it gets a bit steep and in rideable in places, well worth the journey though, here is a little vid……….