Diary of a Mountain Biker

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5th April Afan Argoed

Mike has organised another of his Welsh weekends and a mixed group of eleven of us have made the trip down to Afan Argoed from London arriving mid-morning on Saturday. The car park is surprisingly busy given the Fat Tyre Festival going on at Coed this weekend.

The M4 has been busy too and the 180 mile trek has meant some of the group are delayed. The 5 of us that have made it there first set off on the Penhydd trail around 11-30. Click on any of the pictures to enlarge

Richard

Steve

The Penhydd Trail

This is a great trail, with only the legendary Hidden Valley still closed (is anyone taking bets on whether it will ever open?) but plenty of new singletrack to enjoy.

After a slow start we make good time round the trail. There are loads of wonderful sections that I had totally forgotten from our previous visit in October.

Liam

Richard

Sidewinder is particularly good as it takes you on a long rolling switchback ride across the hillside. With the sun beating down on our backs and the trail stretching out for miles in front of you, life doesn't get much better than this.

The Wall

After a lazy lunch in the sun we set off on the new improved Wall trail (just like Fairy Liquid only less bubbles). I have read a lot about the improvements in all the usual magazines and on web-sites but none of them indicate that after the initial short section through the starting grid you still have to wait a long time until you hit the new sections. We spent the whole of the long ride down to the river crossing and then back up the other side wondering whether we had missed one of the temporary signs.

It's not until about 150 metres into the really serious climb that starts at the sharp left hand turn that you turn right onto the first of the new sections. This is actually a great piece of singletrack. Fast and flowing it undulates along the side of the hill and yet still manages to get you climbing at the same time. Our moans and groans are soon forgotten as we hit another new section only to resurface as we come back to the fire road. We pass a group of 3 blokes from Swindon in full downhill gear who are cussing and moaning as they push up this long climb.

From here on however, the trail is fabulous with loads of great sections. There is a new piece of singletrack cut into the hillside that gives you that "don't look down" feeling you get at Cwmcarn pus a great rocky section where I came across an adder basking in the sun, right in the middle of the trail.

There are some huge boulders to negotiate plus a wooden bridge that will be fun in the wet and an interesting arrangement of what looks like granite slabs set sideways on in the ground.

Liam tumbles down the hillside - his bike landed that way against the tree

The wooden bridge

There is just time for Liam to stage a spectacular triple somersault crash, sliding and tumbling about 15 feet down the hilside (I didn't think he would stop - lucky for him the tree was in the way) and a lovely fast downhill section that even had the Swindon Three in good spirits before the trail spits you out onto the same fireroad you had ridden up at the start.

This is an ideal place to turn left for a second lap although we didn't as we were saving ourselves for the next_day.

The Swindon downhillers

Let me take you to the bridge...