For the record, and embarrassing to admit, it has turned out to be due to my mental pressure gauge needing some serious recalibration 🙂

Help! I didn’t have myself down as mathematically challenged but…

1) Aren’t 32/16 and 34/17 exactly the same?

2) My Alfine 8-speed is on 32/20, and I believe 5th gear is the 1:1 ratio, so roughly speaking 32/18 SS is equivalent to 6th gear and 32/16 SS to 7th, which seems insanely high to me. Are you SSers really that hairy-chested or is my maths wrong here?

I love Cannock and have never been troubled by braking bumps there, don’t know why people make such a fuss!

A bit harsh I’d say. It’s just a flowing jumpy kind of trail not a rocky horror. No less technical than any other red trail I’ve done though.

The climbs are dull but you need a chance to recover for the descents, which are pumpy and fun and easy done slowly but hard done fast IMO.

But then it’s my local trail so I’m totally biased 😉

Going back to the original question, I would agree that CyB is the most “all mountain” centre in Wales because it’s the rockiest, and the less skilled rider like me would definitely be better off on a FS bike there. But it’s still pretty tame compared to proper mountains and easily doable on a HT (pack some spare tubes though).

I suppose Brechfa and Llandegla could be classed as a “canal path with features”, apart from the hills. The others are mostly pretty smooth too, which is nice when on a HT.

In my book it’s the drawdack to end all drawdacks 😉

I recently acquired an Alfine 8-speed which I love. Stealthy, mud-proof, low-maintenance, no beard or real ale habit required.

Isn’t that all the benefits of SS without the drawbacks?

I finished the 70k in just over 4 hours. If I’d known it was a race I might have put a bit of effort in 🙂

Great course, none of last year’s bottlenecks, maybe a little short on technical challenges thanks to all that horrid dry weather we’ve been having, but still a really fun ride. Roll on the next one!

Sorry we all missed your first message. This forum has too many posts to keep on top of – can’t they divide them into sections?!

For posterity: Red and black are very easy to link, it’s signposted. The black can be a test in the depths of winter, but it’s always rideable. All the routes are much smoother and easier on the bike than say Coed y Brenin, where I always break something, but the first black climb at Brechfa is relatively tough. (Easy to miss out though: just stay on the green until the end of the second singletrack section and then go back on the black).

I happily do red and black together because I’m so impossibly manly, but it’s about 45km and quite undulating so it’s a big ride for those who are not used to that kind of thing.

If I have my brakes as far in as I want them, I can’t reach the shifters properly. Is that just me?

I get lots of kudos from newbies and oldies alike for riding a single speed. Shhh, don’t tell anyone else, but it’s an Alfine…

Does Ceredigion count?
What kind of rides?
I live close to Brechfa which I know well. Haven’t got round to Preseli yet. Will ride anything, but I’m a mainly XC kinda guy but forever trying to man up…

The Evo I always wanted:

I think I met your angry caravanners. They wouldn’t let me *out* after the morning race…

Thanks, some good ideas. I’ll check out the rims tomorrow. Don’t think I mismounted the tyres.

Don’t think it was clumsy riding, I was riding like a god today by my standards, albeit a bit faster than usual as it was a race.

My wife says she’ll divorce me if I lose any more weight, so it’s not a pie issue!!

I really don’t want it to happen again, thinking tubeless…

Hit – White’s LEvel is great

Have fun with that. It’s a good event. I did it the first year it was about in a team of 3, so we just did a lap each. We’d gone over for the weekend, so had ridden the MBR on the Sat as well.
We debated doing it this year solo, but after spending a weekend there in late Jan decided that we were way to unfit for 3 laps of the Welsh hills!

Fortunately it’s not quite the whole of the Tarw, but yes it’s going to be tough. Looking forward to it though!

I read on here one of them was rubbish as it has singletrack climbs yet fire road descents??

Typical STW exaggeration, that’s not the Tarw I rode. But yes it is one of those trails that somehow seem to have more climbing than descending. It’s not a fast-flowing smooth easy trail, the technical sections seemed quite rocky to me when I did it last year (admittedly I was on SPDs for the first time that day so even pebbles were scary). I didn’t enjoy it particularly but I’m thinking that’s probably more down to my skills than the trail. I’m about to ride 3 laps of it in the Mawddach Goldrush event on 11 March, so with luck it’ll turn into one of those trails that improves as you get used to it and go faster. So not the best choice for beginners.

Otherwise CyB has some great trails on the other side of the main road. Not too hard technically or physically and loads of fun. Plenty enough for two days! I could repeat the Heifer descent all weekend.

By all means use bar ends if you want to. Who cares what the fashion police say?!

I ran bar ends on riser bars for a while, further compounding this crime against humanity, but I decided that although they helped on standing climbs they were getting in the way on the way back down so I took them off.

To compensate, I now ride wearing a lycra bodysuit (luminous) and sandals with socks (white).

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dyfi-Winter-Warm-Up/158713670883526?sk=wall

No snow!
Check the pdf maps as per other post!
Alternative mapping showing how the trails tie together: http://www.mbswindon.co.uk/trail-guide-brechfa/

Blue is straight up and straight down, black is much longer
Most of the blue descent is shared with the black anyway
At end of blue you could carry on up fire road to the left to the bike park bit with BIG table tops etc, then take forest road at right back to end of blue, all while she sessions the end of the blue descent.
There is also a black bit off the first section of the green on the way to the blue.
The top section of the black is good fun and easy and the black and blue climbs are virtually parallel, so you could do that together.
It’s kind of complicated to explain… But explore and have fun!
All the tricky black bits are short and walkable though. Hardest thing about the black for most I think is not the technicality but the length/climbs!

SOAP – snaps’s link is good – pdf maps of trails are on right of page

If you’re lucky then printed versions of these pdfs are in dispensers at the start of the trail, but often they are empty 🙁

Thanks!

Good question. I’m only 50 miles away and everything’s solid here now but the mud is only just beneath the ice… So I’m taking everything, kitchen sink and all, and will decide what to run/wear when I get there!

I was there in November and the MTBing was not scary technical stuff but fun even so.

However ordinary the MTBing might be, it’s still going to beat riding on the road!

Thanks guys
Think I will try Evos first and see how I go…

Rusty’s way of linking to the blue is the best, should have thought of that myself. (Would never actually do it myself though – would rather cycle back up the final red descent and do it twice!)

The big dip on the black ain’t nothing next to the big dip on the red IMO… Best walked if faint of heart… but that’s the only scary thing on the red.

NB SOAP – you will almost certainly get wet feet half way round the red resulting in frostbite by the end at current temperatures unless you have waterproof footwear!

You can link red and blue in two ways: 1) Carry straight on along fireroad at top of final red descent and you end up at the bottom of the blue. Simple but a waste of height! 2) Better is to carry straight on but then follow signs for the black after half a mile or so and do a nice singletrack section of black (and maybe walk a couple of hard bits) and then the black joins the top of the blue. Then do the blue descent.
Either way you have a big climb back to the red after finishing the blue.

The red descent is better than the blue though, and it takes you back to where you started. So they’re best done separately IMO.

Green/blue in morning and then drive to red in afternoon, perhaps.

I agree Cwm Rhaedr is loads of fun. Short so do it 2-3 times, faster each time. Well, faster down, slower up probably!

@Hugor: Sunday was a nightmare!

I’d avoid the black. Blue and red are flowing and easy and fun. Black is much harder physically and technically.

@ Hugor, the red was like that before the Enduro too… I actually think it’s in a better state now as they drained most of the puddles before the race. Still got a soaking on Sunday though!

Gary, no I’m not number 34, wish I was with times like that though!

Being more of an XC/marathon type than a sprinter, I decided to treat the whole course like a race and try to get back first. This backfired when I got overtaken by some kind of rocket-powered android half way round and then completely ran out of steam and crawled back up the last climb. I got in second but my stage times were woeful. Part of me says no big deal cos of the way I rode it, but part of me is suffering with major pride issues so I shall have to ride the course again some time, take it easy and see if I couldn’t do stages 2 and 3 a lot quicker!

I also tell myself that it’s also partly because some people cheated by cutting out the two extra loops off the red. They know who they are… and they missed possibly the best bit of the route (the rooty section on the black). That should have been prevented I think.

Otherwise it was well organised, though we did have to stop and guess which way to go at one point, and I didn’t like queueing that long to register. But it had a nice home-made feel about it which I really liked, and of course the Gorlech trail is just the best!

Nice photos, shame he completely missed the first riders through, such as me!

Lots of room for improvement (like cancelling 10 km due to mud, I mean come on!!) but fun to race on my doorstep and it’s great that so many people could be bothered to help organise and marshal it.

I hired a Ghost hardtail from Papagayo Bike in Playa Blanca in the south of Lanzarote in November and had a blast going on bits of the round the island MTB route and some extra bits every morning from dawn to late breakfast. You can kind of go where you want on the island but the hire places can advise. Basically loads of loose dry double track everywhere. Nothing scary, but enough to be a challenge and have fun, big hills, great views, nice change from mud!

PS Everyone says the north of the island is better for MTB though!

I too was wondering if some kind GPS whiz could post a map of the course, as I’d love to do the porridgey section in the forest again some time only on a sensible surface… I had a torrid time in the mud…