Rhinog Fawr, Rhinog Fach and Y Llethr west of Coed-y-Brenin.

Tip my hat to all those who did this, especially those in Wales where it chucked it down all night.

I was planning to sleep out in Wales myself but after hearing the forecast i wimped out as I only have a sleeping bag and not a proper bivvy bag.

In the end pitched a tent here

And found time for a quick ride before sun down

As i lay warm and dry in my sleeping bag listening to the wind and rain lashing the tent throughout the night i did not regret my decision but fair play to those who toughed it out.

Riding through the sunrise into work and then feeling your boss/work colleagues niggling comments just bouncing straight off you.

The bridleway is OK and worth doing to see if you like it. Personally if i was around there i would head down the green lane near Sydnhope Hall. The bridleway can get a bit boggy in places as it is a grassy track across fields near the top (with a couple of gates). There is a narrow bit which is where it can be boggy. Last time i rode it though, the section entering the woods has become very badly cut up. It looked to me like alot of MX'ers had been along there causing damage which was a shame IMO. It links up nicely with the woods near Northwood where you have a few options.

Your friend may enjoy the area that you asked about if it is the area i am thinking of. Although near the bottom it is perhaps not as narrow as he would ideally prefer. I remember getting to it from Back lane which was interesting and somewhere i intended to explore further but so far haven't had the time.

I know exactly what he was feeling there 😆

😀 scott_mcavennie2

Once caught a couple at it when i was riding up out of Hayfield, wasn't particularly funny but that's the best i can offer.

…

'Norman saw on English oak.
On English neck a Norman yoke;
Norman spoon to English dish,
And England ruled as Normans wish;
Blithe world in England never will be more,
Till England's rid of all the four.

Well, I'll let you all know next time i'm out walking, and you'd better all stay in doors. What an idiotic thing to say! Seriously Hora, poor troll.

Why is it idiotic? I have been out walking with my parents when mountain bikers came haring round a blind corner saw my elderly father in the middle of the path and locked up. They only missed him by luck not judgement.

Another elderly gentleman was not so lucky and had bones broken when out walking on a nearby footpath.

So does that mean no walking across short FPs pushing the bike then? (legally speaking)
I know of one ride recently where we took a shortcut, and yes we did actually push the length of the FP, so we still could have earned ranger's/RA's/landowner's wrath if caught doing that?

What if you are carrying the bike on your shoulder?

But, given the nature of some SSSIs you could quite easily be deemed to be damaging them by riding over vegetation etc, or disturbing fauna. So it pays to be careful.

What if you are riding away from footpaths on illegally built trails constructed by mountain bikers through areas of rare plant colonies in a fragile environment SSSI like those that exist in my local woodland?

Happened last summer in my local woods too. Illegal campers left stuff everywhere, just chucked beer bottles and rubbish into bushes and scattered around the remains of a fire. Over the course of winter and spring gradually cleared bits of it up (along with other woods users) until now it is almost like it was before. There were at least half a dozen full black bags worth, and it was a long way to the nearest bin.

Well done for clearing it up, though you shouldn’t have had to!

…

98% in 3min 15sec.

Needed 2 goes at Albania 🙂

Lucky that the fare system was re-structured a while back to make it easy for passengers now.

…

You can cross double white lines to overtake a slow-moving vehicle (i.e. one with an Amber flashing light on top) and cyclists only if it is safe to do so.

It is the “if safe to do so” bit that most people struugle to deal with. Nice to hear the van driver get their come-upance though.

Don’t plan any routes starting or finishing in Ashopton.

great pics 8)

are you sure you don’t mean Jolly?

bikes in a rusty old bike stand with space for 4 bikes.

no showers
no dedicated changing area
no wash facilities
no clothes drying facilities

how do you eat them without getting stung then?

Rub them in your hands first. Gets all the stinging hairs off the plant and onto your hands 😉

Was in Vorarlberg (west Austria) in May and can recommend this area too.

In the meantime, will you be supporting the fight against Fascism ?

You seem very good at attacking the views of the BNP but not so hot on defending your own actions in denying free speech to others.

You have a conviction that as a “reasonable person” you are qualified to act as judge, jury and executioner and decide who should be allowed a platform and who shouldn’t.

As we have seen this week the anti-facist groups scored a spectacular own goal. Seeing a load of “left-wing soap dodgers” chucking eggs at democratically elected politicians and preventing them speaking isn’t likely to make many of the 1 million or so people who voted BNP change their minds IMO.

The best way to combat the BNP is to engage in the debate and expose to people what their policies actually mean and the impact it would have on those who they know and who they meet in their day to day lives.

Once more of the people who voted for them realise that they have friends, work colleagues, neighbours who are decent people that would be victimised by the BNP the more repulsive the BNP will appear.

Actually the answer I was looking for was a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
I suspect that I won’t be getting it.

Your answer is ‘no’.

Whilst I admire your determination to combat the BNP, it leaves me uncomfortable that you act as judge, jury and excecutioner in deciding who is “acceptable” to be in power, particularly as you do so without any sort of a mandate to act on “behalf of the people”.

In your post above if you exchange the word “facist” for “infidel” it suddenly reads very differently IMO.

If all groups choose to operate by your principles it would lead to a very unstable situation.

We went to war supposedly to “liberate” undemocratic countries and help them install democratic systems, yet when our own democracy turns up results that are not popular it is OK to abandon these democratic principles??

Like it or not (and to be clear i don’t) nearly 1 million people voted for the BNP. If we had a true proportional representation system instead of the regional one, they would have won 4 seats instead of 2.

The best way to oppose them, IMO, is to engage them in debate to expose their policies and of course, ultimately, to vote for another party in the elections.

The people today throwing eggs and then being interviewed on R4 saying things like “we support free speech just not for facists” and “we are acting on behalf of the majority of the people” (when in fact they have less of a mandate to act on behalf of the people than the BNP) only served to provide Griffin with the opportunity to score some easy points by shifting the debate IMO.

The charge that annoys me the most is the credit card charge being per person per flight 👿

1 person, single flight = £5 for 1 transaction

2 people, return flights = £20 for 1 transaction

4 people, return flights = £40 for 1 transaction

😕

I rode it a while ago and remember it as mainly fireroads.

It was fairly quiet when I rode it and the views around Loch Dee and Loch Trool were good.

Obviously I would recommend Kirroughtree if it was an either/or situation but if you have the time to do both i, personally, would say it was worth it.

…

Did she really need to shove those thermometers in the bushmans ears to tell us the earth shattering revelation

“people regulate their body temperature by sweating”

That’s the kind of thing, I’ll send her cottaging too

Its probably worth pointing out that to alot of people here “going cottaging” has a different meaning to the one you intended 😉

Alot of people here seem to be saying scots gaelic is a dead language therefore it isn’t worth bothering about.

Manx and Cornish are dead languages but Scots gaelic isn’t. It is a threatened language and should not be allowed to drift into extinction the way Manx and Cornish were.

In my opinion the celtic languages are amongst some of the finest heritage we have on these islands and they should be given more support and recognition.

Great pics, haven’t seen many from that part of the world on here.

The riding looks awesome.

If the signs need to be monolingual then use gaelic place names only IMO.

A few from this mornings ride

Good effort! 8)

Those top4 must be 4 of the best cities for mountainbiking on the doorstep, though I doubt this was included in the comparison criteria 😉

Glen Sligachan is rideable either way. Think there is a slight descent from North to South but it is negligible really. Top tip when riding through the glen is to aim for the black gabbro rock where possible, the grip is awesome.

Riding it South to North also gives you a short sharp descent of Am Mam into Camasunary as an added bonus (if you like your descents steep and rocky as opposed to smoother and flowing).

If you are going for the route including An Slugan/Srath Beag my tip would be to make sure you are mentally prepared for the hike a bike as it is quite a bit of hiking. Getting it over near the start of the ride would be a good move though.

Hope you have a good ride and don’t forget to post us a few pics on here afterwards 🙂

Glad you enjoyed the trails 8)

Agree with what Paul B said though about riding in SSCI.

Here is a link to a news report some 5 years ago. Since then the erosion problems have become much worse and I have started noticing MX’s tracks in there recently.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/3488692.stm

Also there have been measures taken by the landowners to spoil the trails. The Black Rocks run that you mention used to be clear all the way down to the A6 but now there are fences and gates across a number of the paths that seemed to be erected with thwarting mountain bikers as at least part of the reason(an elderly gentleman was run into apparently).

There are also alot of large tree trunks being moved to deliberatly block trails and i fear this may be the future we face if we keep posting on forums like this 🙁