Earlier this year (2001), when the weather was warming up I was getting back back into mountain biking. I'm a bit of a fair weather mountain biker, so I hadn't done much riding through the winter. I started to read a couple of magazines and noticed that everyone seemed to think that Coed y Brenin in North Wales, in the Snowdonia national park was the place to go for some quality riding. I got in touch with Andy, one of my chums from my time at Wunderman Cato Johnson/Impiric, and we arranged to head to Coed y Brenin for a weekend.
Finding accommodation
I hunted down information about accommodation and we eventually settled on Trawsfynnydd Holiday Village just a few miles north of the forest. There we would be able to get a cabin that would hold up to eight (if we were very friendly and wished to share beds). Having polled friends for interest, we were pretty sure that we would be able to fill a cabin. So I booked and paid the deposit and we were committed. The subsequent month saw various people agreeing to come and then cancelling for a variety of reasons. In the end, we were a group of four. Myself, Andy, Jon (a fellow Andy knew at university) and Michael (who I worked with at Worldgate).
The Red Bull trail
Over our first weekend at Coed y Brenin, we managed to ride two routes. On the Friday, once we had sorted ourselves out, we cycled to the mountain biking centre and proceeded to our first assault on the Red Bull. The Red Bull trail is only about 8 kilometres, but must have the most exciting riding of all the routes available at Coed y Brenin. Once you have completed the first somewhat arduous climb, it seems to be a sequence of fast downhill singletrack segments and short(ish) climbs. The majority of these singletrack sections are very technical with plenty of sharp corners and large rocks to avoid or ride over. Much more of a thrill than I have found anywhere else. The singletrack segments have been built very well and are very often raised so that they drain well, aswell as facilitating the design of various dips for your bike to dive into, often full of water. It manages to keep your interest throughout.
This was our first introduction to Coed y Brenin, and everyone was thoroughly impressed. We were all exhausted from our ride around the Red Bull and we had taken just over two hours. Yes, that's right, we were very slow. I shall now demonstrate our various excuses for this poor performance:
- We had been travelling for rather a long time. In the case of Andy and myself (I had driven the two of us) it had taken 5.5 hours.
- We hadn't eaten.
- Jon's bike only had one very large single ring. And it wasn't a light bike in the first place.
- Michael and myself were both riding fairly old fully rigid bikes.
I'm sure I could come up with more excuses, but I'll not waste my breath since I'm sure you don't care.
The Karrimor trail
On the Saturday, we decided to do the Karrimor trail. This is a much longer trail at about 30 kilometres. We decided to drive to the mountain bike centre, and park up so that we didn't have to ride home after such a long ride.
I reckon that there is less decent singletrack on the route than on the much shorter Red Bull trail. I don't know how the laws of the universe work on the Karrimor, but I am convinced that you must climb further than you descend. How this is possible, I don't know. Perhaps it is a secret technique of the trailbuilders guild. As you can see in the image just below, we did take a number of opportunities for breaks on the way up whilst everyone else just tore past us on the climbs.
And we needed to take on plenty of fuel on the way ...
One thing I can say though is that when you do get up near the top of the Karrimor trail, there are some spectacular views.
Although most of the Karrimor seems to be climbing, there are a number of decent singletrack sections along, some of which are truly evil. Michael managed to do almost as much walking downhill as Jon did walking uphill. Along one section Andy managed to demonstrate the truism that you will steer in the direction you are looking, as he rode across a narrow ledge with a drop off to the right hand side. And obviously, couldn't keep his eyes of where he could fall, so he went straight off the edge.
His bike pedal got caught on the side on his way down, as you can see in this picture showing the bike hanging upside down. He tumbled further, landing on his back over a branch which he snapped. His landing site was towards the upper left of the photo. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt. Partly thanks to his Camelbak protecting him.
The ride seemed to end a lot sooner than expected. Coming up toward the end, Jon's computer seemed to be indicating that we had only done about 20 miles. If the ride guides we had seen were right, we should have done about 25. We had just taken on plenty of gel (rather sweet lemon curd type stuff) and were preparing ourselves for the agony of more miles, when we came back on to the road and back to the mountain bike centre. Just as we were starting to get a rush of energy from the gel. This may have been due to the bridges that had been taken out by flooding. At least it was good to believe that we were ready for more after all that and we could just drive (not ride) back to the cabin, have a shower and head for some fine nosh at the Rhiw Goch Inn.
The Rhiw Ghoch Inn
I haven't a clue how to pronounce it, but the Rhiw Ghoch serves some of the best food I have eaten in a pub. This really makes the weekend since at the end of a day's cycling, there is nothing better than a good meal and a pint. And I must emphasise that the pint is singular. Throughout the weekend we were unable to drink more than a pint in an evening, and though I had taken a crate of Staropramen, between us, we managed to drink 4 bottles all weekend. We just didn't have the energy for it, and after the exceedingly large meals in the pub, we didn't have room in our bellies either. Call us lightweights, I don't care!
The Rhiw Ghoch is just on the edge of the holiday village, next to the dry ski slope. This means that it is easy enough to walk to it. Though take a torch if you are planning on walking back late, since there is almost no light at all to guide you home afterwards. Despite its proximity, we did actually drive to it on the Saturday night. Not my idea ... I was opposed to it, but since the others were planning on driving there anyway, there didn't seem to be much point in walking. I'm not a stubborn man. Or at least I don't think so.
And as a final tip, can I recommend the fajitas? Any varitey is excellent, including the seafood fajita, which contains a decent variety of juicy seafood unlike most seafood dishes in the UK which tend to just contain a few overcooked prawns and some mussels.