Post by iwan on Aug 18, 2008 20:19:51 GMT
helo guys
i went to university in cardiff and spent a lot of time on the trails down south, mainly afan forest and cwm carn.
cwm carn is only a 20km loop that is well worth a go if your going down, very technical challenging single track climbs and sum steep rocky decents all ammount to a good trail ;D
afan forest has 4 trails all of which have something different added up there is close to 100km of trails there. on the thursday when i went down i started at 6am got to afan about 10am started the wall about 11:30am after a cup of coffee and a scone in the trail centre. it started off dry but soon changed for the worse, terential rain followed but i carried on untill a puncture on the first descent stopped me in my tracks for a while
not amused standing in the rain for 10 mins changing a tube and using the smallest mini pump ever to pump it back up, after 10 mins solid riding i suffered a second puncture which took a further 10 mins to repair, then was problem free to the end ;D
after such a bad start to my fun weekend it took a while for me to drag myself out to do the penhydd trail, it was still raining heavilly. however the penhydd is a favourite of mine in afan easy climbs and a variety of fun decents, thank god penhydd was puncture free ;D
on friday after driving to afan again from a friends house in the middle of cardiff slighlty hungover i had to put my soacking wet cycling shorts and shoes back on then i was going to atempt the 43km skyline but opted to take the first shortcut and cut it down to 15km, a very tough 6km single track climb with plenty of switchbacks but then a 6km decent ;D which was not as good as i had heard as it was hard to keep any speed on the first 2 sections, however the last section was so fast and rocky it cost me another 2 tubes
after the skyline i attempted the white line for the first time, a 20km loop with a black option, the black section had plenty of jumps and big berms as well as a steep rock garden descent. after the climb back up following the black section it was a fast technical decent back to the trail centre, possibly the best in the whole of afan, it was by far the quickest and most nerve racking in sections, this trail cost me one more tube bringing my tally up to 5 punctures in 75km
then saturday jeffers had joined from london and with the both of us hungover we drove over to afan to ride penhydd, the first time for jeff. after geting there i had to put my shorst and shoes on for the third day in a row, by this time they stank and were covered in mud but what can you do ;D as soon as we started it poured down again, some of the worst weather i have ever ridden in, it was so bad that when we got up the first climb we came across people turning back because of the rain. shortly after passing these guys we realised why they turned back, the last 1/4 of the climb was through a cloud of horizontal rain and strong wind lol
anyway we got through it and all in all it was a good weekend riding sori havent got any pics my camera wud have died in the rain. i wud deffo suggest doing these trails sum time if u havent already ;D
i went to university in cardiff and spent a lot of time on the trails down south, mainly afan forest and cwm carn.
cwm carn is only a 20km loop that is well worth a go if your going down, very technical challenging single track climbs and sum steep rocky decents all ammount to a good trail ;D
afan forest has 4 trails all of which have something different added up there is close to 100km of trails there. on the thursday when i went down i started at 6am got to afan about 10am started the wall about 11:30am after a cup of coffee and a scone in the trail centre. it started off dry but soon changed for the worse, terential rain followed but i carried on untill a puncture on the first descent stopped me in my tracks for a while
not amused standing in the rain for 10 mins changing a tube and using the smallest mini pump ever to pump it back up, after 10 mins solid riding i suffered a second puncture which took a further 10 mins to repair, then was problem free to the end ;D after such a bad start to my fun weekend it took a while for me to drag myself out to do the penhydd trail, it was still raining heavilly. however the penhydd is a favourite of mine in afan easy climbs and a variety of fun decents, thank god penhydd was puncture free ;D
on friday after driving to afan again from a friends house in the middle of cardiff slighlty hungover i had to put my soacking wet cycling shorts and shoes back on then i was going to atempt the 43km skyline but opted to take the first shortcut and cut it down to 15km, a very tough 6km single track climb with plenty of switchbacks but then a 6km decent ;D which was not as good as i had heard as it was hard to keep any speed on the first 2 sections, however the last section was so fast and rocky it cost me another 2 tubes
after the skyline i attempted the white line for the first time, a 20km loop with a black option, the black section had plenty of jumps and big berms as well as a steep rock garden descent. after the climb back up following the black section it was a fast technical decent back to the trail centre, possibly the best in the whole of afan, it was by far the quickest and most nerve racking in sections, this trail cost me one more tube bringing my tally up to 5 punctures in 75km
then saturday jeffers had joined from london and with the both of us hungover we drove over to afan to ride penhydd, the first time for jeff. after geting there i had to put my shorst and shoes on for the third day in a row, by this time they stank and were covered in mud but what can you do ;D as soon as we started it poured down again, some of the worst weather i have ever ridden in, it was so bad that when we got up the first climb we came across people turning back because of the rain. shortly after passing these guys we realised why they turned back, the last 1/4 of the climb was through a cloud of horizontal rain and strong wind lol
anyway we got through it and all in all it was a good weekend riding sori havent got any pics my camera wud have died in the rain. i wud deffo suggest doing these trails sum time if u havent already ;D
