Anyone ridden the Brechfa Raven (Black) Trail

mbnut

Hi

I'm going to drive from Kent to Brechfa for a day riding the Gorlech and Raven Trails... i'm hoping its going to be worth it... any feedback much appreciated

Cheers

deadpool2e

Hi M8 lat us know how you get on as i may do that as well one day.

danhx

Some reviews here:

http://www.moredirt.co.uk/trail/South-W ... echfa/108/

billynobates

mbnut wrote:

Hi

I'm going to drive from Kent to Brechfa for a day riding the Gorlech and Raven Trails... i'm hoping its going to be worth it... any feedback much appreciated

Cheers

When are you thinking of going dude? Friends of mine own/run a pub which backs onto the trail and i've been meaning to ride there.

mbnut

I'm heading over on Friday the 4th July... was meant to be this weekend but I have had to change my plans... I will give you penty of feed back, not that i'm a great rider but if its fun its fun...

deadpool2e

let me know how long it take your to drive there as well please.

billynobates

deadpool2e wrote:

let me know how long it take your to drive there as well please.

Around 6 hours,dude

RossCollins

I have ridden it a couple of times, last time was on the 12th June. It wasn't way marked then so had to ride around and see what we found. There are some great sections, very down hill, drop offs, table tops and berms etc. There are a few log runs and stuff. When its finished and way marked I think it will be very good and fun. Apparently the plan is to end up with a 30k loop, some of it is cross country style and some of it is down hill. Cant wait till its done.

The other routes at Brechfa are worth checking out, the red run at Abergorlech is great fun and the Blue and Green runs have some very fast flowing sections.

If you do the lot it is a great day out, the woods are nice and if the weather is fine there are some lovely views. Finish off at the pub in Abergolech by the river, very nice.

Hope you enjoy

mbnut

Thanks for the replies... unfortunately the trip went pear shaped when i got caught in 3 different traffic jams and ended up at Afan as i was concerned about runnning out of time at Brecha... i will be trying again a bit later in the summer cheers

Moose.

Hi,

I'm a little late on this thread but I having spent last weekend at Brechfa, figured I'd tell you all about it. It's well worth the trip if you've never been. I've got friends who live in Pembroke, which makes things a little easier

Things started badly, as we'd planned on going for a couple of hours on Friday evening but annoying my derailleur hanger snapped in the car:



Still, managed to do the last downhill section chainless, so the evening wasn't a total waste. Luckily one of my friends (who wasn't riding that weekend) has the same bike, so I borrowed his hanger for the rest of the weekend.

Seeing as though the weather was hopeless on Saturday, we decided to go for the whole day on Sunday and do both the existing red trail (Gorech) and the new black trail (Raven) which can be linked up into one, near 40km, long trail.



First the bad bits, there's a fair bit of climbing, some of which is quite steep, so you'd better be fit!



It is however, mainly done along single track winding through the forest rather than fire roads (although there's still a bit of that too).

The fun bits are bloody awesome though There's a great section near the end which consists of 4 large (10-12 foot across) table tops which are really nice to ride:







although I recommend shin pads:



as this is what happens when you try to clear a 10ft table top jump but don't lean back far enough. As I took off, I was bucked of the bike, landed back on the saddle without any feet on the pedals and somehow didn't fall off but did catch my shin on the left pedal. Dam those V8s hurt! There's a video here of my mate Si showing how to do it without falling off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egeak-wFtpo

There's also a couple of log ride sections:





which is about as "North Shore" as it gets There's also a number of excellent steep descents through the forest with some beautifully formed berms. One of the sections has bloody huge berms, probably 15ft high in places and near vertical, allowing for some lovely swooping turns as you scythe your way down. I didn't manage to take a picture as it was so steep, you couldn't really climb back up again!

All it in, well worth making the trek to and plenty for all as there's also both a blue trail and green trail there too. The blue's very nice in places with some lovely fast flowing single track.

Hope this helps

Anonymous

Great post, Moose.