I did the Epic Cymru and I’d put it on the Regional XC/Wiggle MTB Sportive side of the spectrum. I was disappointed with quite a lot about the race.

In the launch and build the Trans-Provence was referenced a lot (this magazine!) – this was misleading and led to over biked competitors riding the endless fire roads that made up the majority on the 50+ kms each day. Epic Cymru was up to 50kms a day pure regional level XC with a few kms a day ‘descending’ (the kind that requires pedalling). Epic Cymru claimed to be 90%+ off-road, this is true but the majority of the off-road riding was on fire roads often up and down the same ones, Day 1 start on 15-20kms of fire road end riding the same fire road, Day 2 ride the same fire road out …

The timed ‘DH’ stages (called Trail King/Queen) were an open category while the over-all (xc race) was in the age categories you entered under, my impression was DH stages were of not of any real interest to the organisers. I over head someone from A Cycling telling a group of riders (who were dropping out due to the race being what they expected) that he ‘never said it was an enduro’ this is true but he never said it was an XC/Sportive either.

The riders may of spread out at times but for example on day 1 in Afan riders were set off 20 secs apart for a 1 km timed fire road climb which went straight into a timed Trail King/Queen stage – guess what happened? XC riders zoomed up the fire roads and were all over the Trail King/Queen stage with bigger bikes trying to get past, XC riders trying to maintain a good overall for the day ‘enduro’ rider trying to make one of just two DH stages that day count towards the Trail King/Queen category (and have some fun), XC rider is racing the other riders in his/her age category ‘enduro’ rider is racing everyone. After complaints to the organiser from the XC rand Trail King/Queen riders the organisers decided that the rider in front on the trail had right of way and did not have to yield to the faster rider (this is at odds with any other race I’ve ever done) the reasoning for this was that the rider in front might be defending the lead in their category (remember categories are in place only for the overall XC race) and should not have to lose time in the overall to a rider focusing on just the Trail King/Queen.

The Stages in BPW, again the organisers made much of using BPW (em let’s see it’s a bike park saying you will be racing there suggest the use of – gravity) In BPW the Epic Cymru went down one of the Red trails un-timed to the car park at the bottom turned around for the first timed stage of the day which was Up the BPW XC climb, with just one timed run DOWN (Wibbly Wobbly into Rim Dinger) before hitting the fire roads again.

If you want to do the Epic Cymru answer yes to all of these questions ?

Do you like riding around the edges of grassy fields in country parks?

Do you like big climbs in the middle of DH stages?

Do you like to ride Afan at the same time as 4 coach loads of riders head off on to the trails?

Do you get excited at the idea of being allowed to ride UP the final Skyline decent?

Do you go to BPW to ride UP the XC climb and get the uplift to take you down to do it again?

Do you optimise your bike set for fire road riding?

Do you get surprised when you see someone riding DOWN a trail you had only ever climbed UP

I did the Epic Cymru and I’d put it on the Regional XC/Wiggle MTB Sportive side of the spectrum. I was disappointed with quite a lot about the race.

In the launch and build the Trans-Provence was referenced a lot (this magazine!) – this was misleading and led to over biked competitors riding the endless fire roads that made up the majority on the 50+ kms each day. Epic Cymru was up to 50kms a day pure regional level XC with a few kms a day ‘descending’ (the kind that requires pedalling). Epic Cymru claimed to be 90%+ off-road, this is true but the majority of the off-road riding was on fire roads often up and down the same ones, Day 1 start on 15-20kms of fire road end riding the same fire road, Day 2 ride the same fire road out …

The timed ‘DH’ stages (called Trail King/Queen) were an open category while the over-all (xc race) was in the age categories you entered under, my impression was DH stages were of not of any real interest to the organisers. I over head someone from A Cycling telling a group of riders (who were dropping out due to the race being what they expected) that he ‘never said it was an enduro’ this is true but he never said it was an XC/Sportive either.

The riders may of spread out at times but for example on day 1 in Afan riders were set off 20 secs apart for a 1 km timed fire road climb which went straight into a timed Trail King/Queen stage – guess what happened? XC riders zoomed up the fire roads and were all over the Trail King/Queen stage with bigger bikes trying to get past, XC riders trying to maintain a good overall for the day ‘enduro’ rider trying to make one of just two DH stages that day count towards the Trail King/Queen category (and have some fun), XC rider is racing the other riders in his/her age category ‘enduro’ rider is racing everyone. After complaints to the organiser from the XC rand Trail King/Queen riders the organisers decided that the rider in front on the trail had right of way and did not have to yield to the faster rider (this is at odds with any other race I’ve ever done) the reasoning for this was that the rider in front might be defending the lead in their category (remember categories are in place only for the overall XC race) and should not have to lose time in the overall to a rider focusing on just the Trail King/Queen.

The Stages in BPW, again the organisers made much of using BPW (em let’s see it’s a bike park saying you will be racing there suggest the use of – gravity) In BPW the Epic Cymru went down one of the Red trails un-timed to the car park at the bottom turned around for the first timed stage of the day which was Up the BPW XC climb, with just one timed run DOWN (Wibbly Wobbly into Rim Dinger) before hitting the fire roads again.

If you want to do the Epic Cymru answer yes to all of these questions ?

Do you like riding around the edges of grassy fields in country parks?

Do you like big climbs in the middle of DH stages?

Do you like to ride Afan at the same time as 4 coach loads of riders head off on to the trails?

Do you get excited at the idea of being allowed to ride UP the final Skyline decent?

Do you go to BPW to ride UP the XC climb and get the uplift to take you down to do it again?

Do you optimise your bike set for fire road riding?

Do you get surprised when you see someone riding DOWN a trail you had only ever climbed UP

I contacted BPW regarding what I thought were very long waits on 21/22 Dec.

This is the replay I got, which I think anyone planning a trip to BPW might find helpful.

‘For 1 bus there is a 25 minute turn around time. We run 3 buses on the weekend during the Winter due to a business plan that was well thought about because of the weather and trail maintenance issues we will have through out the winter such as ice, snow, wind and rain washing out the trails and making them harder to maintain, making this safety issue followed by more riders this would make this very dangerous also very challenging for the trail crew we have working full time hours on these in all weather.
During the Summer opening times however there will be more buses available’

I’ve suggested they put this information on the BPW site to set expectations.

hope this helps

While BPW has a lot going for it they haven’t improved the uplift since the posts here about it 3 months ago. The uplift is still slow, 20+ min wait,the drivers still take forever to load up when they do arrive. They really need to improve on this.

Had drive side pedal fail on me today in same way, XTR expensive and dangerous lucky it happened on a fire road. I’ll be looking for a refund too many XTR pedals have failed (Shimano should be recalling them). XT version seem to be ok?

shame because it’s the first Shimano component I’ve had let me down

Sent the post back to Jungle, same day they got it they fixed it in the post back to me so full marks for service.

It was fixed under warranty, they said ‘it was a simple issue where the internal link cable had slipped’

i’d hope the cable slipping is not somethign that’s going to happen anytime I use the post in the kind of coditions it was made for

Jungle also pointed out – ‘marks inside that are caused by over tightening of the seat clamp’ been using a roadie clamp with a max of 6.5 nm, KS say max is 7 nm this tell me need to be very very careful with the Lev and go for the minimum nm, I’ll try come carbon grip paste

hope this helps someone

Have KS Lev looks very tidy, . Hopefully Jungle will sort the issue with the post and I’ll be able to stick with it, have a Mk10, do not want to drill the frame for a Stealth or have a cable loop.

Had Gravity dropper turbo on it before (you can’t fault the simplicity of the GD but it’s not what you could call pretty) but the cable routing from the post through the hole in top tube was a problem, the angles to tight so cable did not run well and stuck. The new Gravity dropper turbo LP has Lower profile cable routing at the post so might work

Chvck – if you dont mind me asking why did they reject the warranty claim?

The post started playing up about a month ago in the Alps dropping became unreliable – sometimes it would go down but mostly you had to get off the bike coax it (defeating the propose of a dropper post). Return to full extension was fine but the action was slow.

Over the weekend the post decide to give up completely and would not go down at all, an hour into the ride it would start to work again but the action was not smooth and post would maybe drop a couple of inches with some off the bike coaxing. It would return to full height but action was off . After stopping for an hour post would again be stuck at full extension. In the end I Changed back to a standard post and QR

Jungle got back to me apologised for the problem and said:

‘We can do that work for you. Please just send the post back to us here with a covering note to explain the problem. We will then inspect the post and get back to you asap and complete any warranty work required’

so far so good!

thepurist – thanks I’ll get in touch with them.

I just contacted Superstar about a defective KS Lev and they have told me to send it back to them saying:

‘we need to have any faulty items returned for inspection under warranty’

‘If your item is found to be faulty under our warranty policy we are happy to refund postage costs please see our T+Cs for full details’

fingers crossed