Snowdonia, February 2003
Three of us (Chris, Ash and myself) set off from Brooky last Friday
heading over towards N Wales to meet up with a bunch of MTBers from
Birmingham and Bristol Unis. The idea was to meet up on Saturday morning
and go riding around the Karrimor and other trails in Coed-y-Brennin. Fine
plan!
We had a fairly uneventful journey over to the now traditional stopping
off point at the Meole Brace services on the Shrewsbury ring road where,
as soon as we entered the car park, we saw a large minibus with an even
larger bike trailer attached to it. Lots of shiny bikes. It turned out to
be the guys from Birmingham, also stopping off for a burger. After
establishing meeting times, admiring bikes and enthusing about riding, we
both departed and continued the journey. The three of us were headed
towards Ffridd Farm and got there, unbelieveably, before midnight!
The next day dawned brightish, but with a bunch of dark cloud over in the
west... Could be a wet day, in which case C-y-B was a good choice. We left
the farm at 10:00 and took an entertaining back-road route to C-y-B which
involved some fantastic views, heavy use of the Landy's low ratio box and
some blue smoke... Great fun! When we got to C-y-B, Birmingham and Bristol
Unis were already there and aring to go. All in all there were upwards of
25 riders! The XC and Downhill guys went their respective ways, with the
XC bunch heading for the Karrimor trail en-masse. The first climb and
piece of singletrack got everyone warmed through and we then split up
into a faster group of 6 and a more relaxed group of 9. Chris, myself, Ian
(on his singlespeed) and Alex (from Bristol) and John and Jim (from
Birmingham) decided we were feeling energetic and spun off. The Karrimor trail,
for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a very pleasant XC trail with some
superb pieces of rocky, forested singletrack downhill interlaced with
doubletrack climbs on fireroad. Roughly 23 miles in length, it
criss-crosses both sides of the valley through which Afon Eden runs.
Needless to say we had a great time - some of the newly built pieces of
singletrack were indeed very sweet, and a great improvement over the
former routing of the trail. Amazingly, no-one had any mechanicals and we
were able to maintain a fluid pace for pretty much all of the ride. When
we got back to the cafe at C-y-B having completed the trail my odometer
recorded just under 2 hours of pedalling time... After a nosh stop at the
cafe, we decided to go and hit some of the Karrimor's singletrack again
for another 40 or so minutes. Very pleasant.
We all regrouped as it was starting to get towards dusk (in the
incessant rain) and it transpired that everyone has had a great time.
After bidding farewells, we all went our respective ways home -
Birminggham and Bristol to Plas Isa in Dolgellau and ourselved to Ffridd.
This time, we were staying in the upper barn (old hayloft) which was very
cosy and pleasant. Fully equipped with kitchenette, 3 piece suite and
elecric piano, the rest of the evening floated by until we all fell
asleep...
The next day dawned, the rain disappeared, the sun came out and, after a
fairly lazy morning, we headed up towards Penrhyndeudraeth with the
intention of exploring Coed Llyn y Garnedd and some of the old slate
mining areas around Croesor. An old bridleway led, very usefully, into the
forest (and provided a useful opportunity to free a siezed hub... ahem...)
where we climbed around before coming out on the B4410 at Ryhd from where
we were able to explore the rest of the forest from. Some nice, swooping
fireroad climbs and some virgin singletrack in almost unridden forest. At
this point someone's wheel bearings (ahem...) started to disassemble
themselves, the resultant lateral play making for some interesting
cornering... After half an hour or so of playing, we ended back on the
minor road with more arrows on it than it had kilometers. This led to
Croesor from where we took an old track leading up the side of Cwm Croesor
to the slate mines around Llyn Croesor. A fantastic climb, gaining about
1000ft in one almost constant gradient over a little under 2km in
distance. Awesome. We were well rewarded with some stunning views, which
we decided to try and better by climbing a little higher... Some carrying,
bog-hopping and clambering later we felt had a 300degree panorama of
southern Snowdonia. Beautiful. What goes up, has to come down, so off we
went. At this point the manifold difference between disc brakes and
V-brakes was illustrated when someone's (ahem...) V-brakes failed and,
despite brake levers being pulled all the way back into the handlebars,
ended up in a stack which was luckily broken by a thigh-shaped rock...
ouch... The pace went slighter slower from then on, and we headed back
into Croesor and out on an old byway towards Bwlehgwernog. Rocky, boggy
and great fun! With time running out, we hit the A4085 to get back to
Penrhyndeudraeth and the Landy.
We then headed home, stopped at our favourite service station, gave the
Birimingham minibus and jump-start and got back to Cambridge by 2300. All
in all a great trip!
Thanks to:
Chris for driving and routeplanning sunday's ride.
Alan, Ian and others at Bristol and Birmingham for organising and
coordinating C-y-B on the saturday.
Chris at Ffridd for yet another great place to stay.
Bart Hallmark
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