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I'm a telecoms engineer. In my spare time I enjoy photography, fiddling with my Landrover and consum...
I'm a telecoms engineer. In my spare time I enjoy photography, fiddling with my Landrover and consuming fine ales.
Member since:21.07.2000
Reviews:106
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I've just come back from a week in Snowdonia with some friends and, as anyone who knows me would expect, my mountain bike. You see, right now North Wales is very much the in place to go for mountain biking, something to do with the fact that IMBA (International Mountain Bicycling Association) have decided that Wales is on a par with the sport's birthplace of California in terms of places to go and have a bit of two wheeled fun. The main centre for all the fuss is Coed-y-Brenin, a forest about half way between Dolgellau and Porthmadog, which is where we decided to have our week of two wheeled fun.
We spent the week in a self cateringlog cabin in Trawsfynydd, only about three miles away from the trailhead at Coed-y-Brenin. The cabins are privately owned and are let out via Trawfynydd Holidays Ltd for quite reasonable sums of money. We paid £270 for a week in a six bed cabin, although the costs vary throughout the year. Being privately owned they are a little more homely than many self-catering places I've stayed, our cabin had a leather sofa and pictures on the walls. Not very nice pictures, but they were better than staring at a blank wall all week.
At the top of the holiday village is the local pub, the Rhiw Goch Inn,
a very friendly place which welcomes families and serves food. There's also a shop and laundry facilities available at the centre of the village. Nearby Trawsfynydd has a selection of shops including a Spar which stays open late, but anybody needing beer had better avoid Thursdays when the village off-license closes early, as we found out to our cost. A wider range of services can be found a bit further afield in Dolgellau, including a largish Kwik Save and Co-op, plus an off-license that stays open on Thursdays!
So, apart from drinking beer, what else did we do? Well, there was that moutain biking that I mentioned in passing. Coed-y-Brenin (henceforth known as CYB) is a forest run by Forest Enterprise with a set of five trails of varying lengths maintained by a dedicated trail maintainance crew.
So, Monday we headed out to CYB with the intention of starting gently. The Red Bull route was looking inviting. It's only around eight miles long, although in that eight miles the trail builders have managed to pack in some really technically demanding tracks, some gut-busting climbs and some brilliant decents. We got through this one with no-one getting injured! Arriving back at the visitor centre, it was 5:!0pm. Oh no! The cafe had closed 10 minutes ago! It's at this point a friendly face popped out of the cafe, stared at the four panting mountain bikers and uttered the words "We've closed, but if you want anything cold then come in". How could we refuse? A drink and a Mars bar later we felt ready to do it again, but instead headed back to the cabin for more food and to dump our bikes on the way to the pub.
With Monday as a nice warm up, Tuesday loomed big on the horizon. Looming especially large at us on this particular Tuesday was a sign that said "Karrimor Trail". It's difficult to put a precise figure on the Karrimor, but sources say between 18.5 miles and 26 miles long, with 4000ft of climbing. It's probably around the 23 miles figure, and I'm certainly not disputing the claims for the climbing! The first part of the trail, as is the nature of mountain biking, is a huge climb. This takes you to the start of the Red Bull which you follow for a bit, before going on another huge climb followed by a technical decent and so on, until you run out of forrest. At this point, you're faced with the A470. Previously, cyclists had to find a way to cross the road avoiding almost certain death. Well, in a spending spree over the winter, they've gone and arranged an underpass to the other side of the road where you ride along some quiet country lanes for a short while before going on a massive climb along forest roads. By the time you've finished this climb, you'll feel pretty cheesed off, but just remember, once you've reached the top, Mother Nature will owe you about 1100ft. We decided to get the 1100ft back off Mother Nature (after lunch) and headed off down the hill and silly speeds, interrupted only by the RAF flying past the side of the moutain at more or less eye level. You start on forest track, then drop onto manufactured singledtrack which has been designed to tax most riders with tight turns and sharp decents over rocks and roots. Over one such drop I became the first casualty of the week, with a bruised hip. I was doing so well, too. After several tiring hours we drifted back to the cafe to indulge in some of their absolutely wonderful cakes, then back to the cabin for well needed rest.
Wednesday I stayed behind with a non-cycling related illness whilst the others went off and rode the Red Bull again. This time, confidence had pumped the lads up and one of the other riders in the group came a cropper and came away with some rather nice gravel rash.
Thursday, with one of the others deciding he needed a rest, we tackled the MBR trail (so called because of sponsorship from Moutain Bike Rider magazine). This one is probably around the 18 mile mark, taking in some bits of the Karrimor, but with more technical bits and (slightly) less hallucination-inducing climbs. The week we were there much of the MBR was closed off due to bridges being washed away in winter floods, but work was being carried out to restore the bridges and the trail to it's former glory. It's on the MBR we met one of the friendliest people we'd met all week. We didn't get his name, but he was 65 years old and was with us on most of the downhills. Age had taken it's toll in the respect that he wasn't able to climb as well as the rest of us, but fair play to the man, if I'm still riding like him when I'm his age, I'll be well chuffed. Riding along towards the end of the trail with our new friend he pointed out the final bit of singletrack to us. "They call this bit the flightpath" he said to us and we headed off at great speed. The adrenaline was flowing, as was the blood of one of my mates by the time we'd reached the end. I tried to claim that I'd actually got first blood of the trip, not him but was out-voted on the grounds that a shaving cut didn't count. So, back to the cafe (notice a theme here?) and as we sat there drinking our tea and eating our cakes, we noticed a rather large hole in our companion's leg. Refusing to be panicked, I finished my tea and drove to Dolgellau casualty where the nurses greeted us with "If you're mountain bikers, get lost." We're fairly sure they were joking, anyway. Apparently Dolgellau casualty was threatened with closure at one point, but CYB is doing a very good job of ensuring it's continued existance.
Friday we'd ridden all the mountain bike trails at CYB, so we decided to head North to Betws-y-Coed, about 20 miles away from our cabin. There's a few more trails here, maintained by the same people who look after CYB. Unfortunately, we'd not done our homework, and a couple of hours driving around resulted in us getting fed up, and riding the Red Bull. Again. With more tea and cakes.
Saturday morning we had to vacate the cabin by 10am, which resulted in a packing/sweeping/hoovering/washing frenzy before one last blast around the Red Bull for old time's sake, and then more tea and cakes at the cafe.
If the routes I've described seem a bit tortuous, there's some other routes that we didn't ride there too. These are mainly forest roads and are suitable for moderately fit riders. The area is also riddle with cycle paths and footpaths.
During our time there we had each put in at least 60 miles of off-road riding, countless cups of tea, loads of chocolate flap jacks and far too much alcohol. Not only that, but we'd met some really friendly people. Bike snobbery isn't really something that you get much. You get the occasional people who bought a £2000 bike because they thought it would look good on top of their car, take the mick out of everyone else's bikes then put in a very poor ride, but they are a minority and can be ignored. Everybody else is out for a good time and we spent large chunks of our week talking to complete strangers.
We've not really considered the cost of our week, but our only expenses were the cost of the cabin (£270), food (which we cooked ourselves), petrol and beer. And tea and cakes at the CYB cafe. Did I mention there's a cafe there?
If you go to Coed-y-Brenin, here's a few things to try and remember:
DON'T fall off. DO laugh and grin in a manic way constantly, especially if you've just fallen off. DON'T be miserable. DO admire the view from the top of the Karrimor trail. DO talk complete rubbish to friendly strangers. DO eat lots of cake.
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