The Edge Cycleworks 'Big' Shop Ride

Coed-y-Brenin

Sun 20th March 2011

Although it was busy in the Coed-y-Brenin car park I managed to find everyone who said they’d turn up, including the new guys, Sam and Sam. With riding a MTB centre my guiding duties would be lighter, so I’d let the group drift over the usual maximum of 10. The group may have numbered 13 but bad luck seemed far away. After weeks of wet weather it was forecast to be dry.

The big rocks at the start of The Beast woke everyone up before the first long climb, which soon had us shedding layers. This included Sam J, who was fighting his way up with only 9 gears. Snowdonia was proving a little steeper than his home turf of Nottingham. He made it though, and was rewarded with some fantastic descending.

The trails were a swoopy, jumpy blur of rocky fun, something that defines Coed-y-Brenin. But as I was to find out, it wasn’t exactly the Coed-y-Brenin I remembered. The first change was the trees. They had been cleared in places, which increased our sightlines and encouraged higher speeds. This led to a few hairy moments and the first off of the day, when Sam J parted company with his bike.

The ‘False Teeth’ trail had also changed. Sympathetic regarding and some nice berms at the top gave way to a huge transformation lower down, where the eroded, rooty singletrack had been replaced by a sweeping trail littered with rocky drops. It was so good I had to go back up for another go.

When The Beast left the adrenaline of the MBR we headed into the far reaches of the forest. The trails here were still fun but had to be worked for. This made us thankful for the café stop at the halfway point. While this led to cold legs on the next steep climb it was worth it for a stomach full of cake and tea.

Rather than follow a long fire track drag we took a short cut. In no time we were barrelling down through the trees again on a mixture of fast flowing singletrack and big bouldery trails. It was all great fun but hard work to ride fast (or a bit slower on a steel hardtail – Si). By now tiredness started to kick in, with aches and pains in or arms and legs from the constant climbing and descending, and the occasional lapse in concentration.

After a punishing 21 miles of climb, descent, climb, descent, repeat we returned to the car park happy. Happy from the big dollop of fun Coed-y-Brenin had delivered. It would have taken twice the distance on natural trails for so much good descending. But it still felt like we had ridden twice as far, which also made us happy to see the MTB centre and the chance to refuel before we headed home.