Afan today... another epic adventure.
Headed to Afan today with a mate and his CUBE AMS100 on my Spec HArdrock Sport disc.
Early start and lovely weather meant we set off up Whites at 9.10am. Cracking ride up there to the top. Made good time myself but minor delays waiting for the (slightly) older fella to catch up. We ended up with a Car-park to gate time of 1hr 00 which i know is rubbish for some of you but i rekon he's really pleased with that. (At 50 years old he should be... top performance). I rekon i could knock in a 45mins on my own, but we ride together as mates for support and assistance so until one of the other lads comes too we're at his pace only
Only failed 2 sections/items on the way up...
1. 3 rock step up, approx 3' in height, sodding hell how on earth do you boys get up that "
2. Multi rock step by stream with a 14-16" step off and another rock 2' ahead, no matter what i did i kept catching the front wheel on the 2' ahead rock and stalling. Tried it 4 times and failed all 4.
Onto the downhill and all went real smoothly right up to the middle of Energy. Narrow singletrack through trees with log supports on the sides. (i'm sure you know it) Just after the table tops. Into 1 part i had a little hop over a root and landed badly. Front wheel went left, over the little supports and the bike shot to the floor in an instant... OUCH !. Hurt my left thumb, ouch... shoulder is sore and right arm is battered and bruised.
Rest of teh downhill went smoothly enough. Slow pootle back to the car and off for breakfast.
We decided on Penhydd after an early lunch... NEver done that one so thought we'd see what it's like. Well to say we were both underwhelmed is an understatement of Epic proportions. The climb was dull as heck (However i expected that) although quite a chunk steeper than i thought it would be. I was expecting switchback long fireroads.. instead was met by HUGE long arse climbs up and up and up.
Now when you do Whites and Wall the descents are proportional to the climb, hard climb= great desecents. However Penhydd for the first 3-5 sections after climbing is bloody awful. It was only when we got to Hidden Valley (i think it's called) that the trails became any fun at all. Even then for me it wasn't exactly brilliant on the HT as they're very rocky and bloody rattly beyond words on the big arse Specialized.
By the time we got down to the decent sections of Dead Sheep Gully, some Welsh name and Bubble and squeak we were a bit on the wrong side of tired to really enjoy them fully. The end of the trail almost became a relief as the pace had slowed due to too many mistakes and lapses of concentration through being tired.
If i could go back and get to Hidden Valley and skip a load of the other crap i'd do Penhydd again. However i doubt it's top of the list to be honest.
Whites really is hard to beat.
I also did something i have been putting off for ages and spent a little time on my mates CUBE AMS 100. Oh bloody hell that's a SWEET SWEET machine indeed. It FLIES up the trails on Whites, skipping obstacles with ease and just cruising over the tricky rocks and roots. It has made me realise the limitations of the cheap and heavy specialized. Having my mate keeping up with me on sections i should really leave him easily on over on Penhydd shows me that it's time in April to put the Specialized up for sale and get on the C2W scheme and get something a bit higher spec. The Boardman Pro FS or Comp FS are top of the list currently.
Back home and bloody aching where i lobbed it but it's work the 2.5 hours drive each way without a shadow of a doubt.
You got to love Afan
Early start and lovely weather meant we set off up Whites at 9.10am. Cracking ride up there to the top. Made good time myself but minor delays waiting for the (slightly) older fella to catch up. We ended up with a Car-park to gate time of 1hr 00 which i know is rubbish for some of you but i rekon he's really pleased with that. (At 50 years old he should be... top performance). I rekon i could knock in a 45mins on my own, but we ride together as mates for support and assistance so until one of the other lads comes too we're at his pace only
Only failed 2 sections/items on the way up...
1. 3 rock step up, approx 3' in height, sodding hell how on earth do you boys get up that "
2. Multi rock step by stream with a 14-16" step off and another rock 2' ahead, no matter what i did i kept catching the front wheel on the 2' ahead rock and stalling. Tried it 4 times and failed all 4.
Onto the downhill and all went real smoothly right up to the middle of Energy. Narrow singletrack through trees with log supports on the sides. (i'm sure you know it) Just after the table tops. Into 1 part i had a little hop over a root and landed badly. Front wheel went left, over the little supports and the bike shot to the floor in an instant... OUCH !. Hurt my left thumb, ouch... shoulder is sore and right arm is battered and bruised.
Rest of teh downhill went smoothly enough. Slow pootle back to the car and off for breakfast.
We decided on Penhydd after an early lunch... NEver done that one so thought we'd see what it's like. Well to say we were both underwhelmed is an understatement of Epic proportions. The climb was dull as heck (However i expected that) although quite a chunk steeper than i thought it would be. I was expecting switchback long fireroads.. instead was met by HUGE long arse climbs up and up and up.
Now when you do Whites and Wall the descents are proportional to the climb, hard climb= great desecents. However Penhydd for the first 3-5 sections after climbing is bloody awful. It was only when we got to Hidden Valley (i think it's called) that the trails became any fun at all. Even then for me it wasn't exactly brilliant on the HT as they're very rocky and bloody rattly beyond words on the big arse Specialized.
By the time we got down to the decent sections of Dead Sheep Gully, some Welsh name and Bubble and squeak we were a bit on the wrong side of tired to really enjoy them fully. The end of the trail almost became a relief as the pace had slowed due to too many mistakes and lapses of concentration through being tired.
If i could go back and get to Hidden Valley and skip a load of the other crap i'd do Penhydd again. However i doubt it's top of the list to be honest.
Whites really is hard to beat.
I also did something i have been putting off for ages and spent a little time on my mates CUBE AMS 100. Oh bloody hell that's a SWEET SWEET machine indeed. It FLIES up the trails on Whites, skipping obstacles with ease and just cruising over the tricky rocks and roots. It has made me realise the limitations of the cheap and heavy specialized. Having my mate keeping up with me on sections i should really leave him easily on over on Penhydd shows me that it's time in April to put the Specialized up for sale and get on the C2W scheme and get something a bit higher spec. The Boardman Pro FS or Comp FS are top of the list currently.
Back home and bloody aching where i lobbed it but it's work the 2.5 hours drive each way without a shadow of a doubt.
You got to love Afan
Salsa Spearfish 29er
http://superdukeforum.forumatic.com/index.php
http://superdukeforum.forumatic.com/index.php
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Comments
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Glad you enjoyed - I'm lucky enough to live in swansea and ride afan several times a week if I'm lucky - I have to go else where if I want variety - I guess I'm spoilt!
The climb at whites/skyline is a good one - a few technical bits - but largely its having the pace to fire up those rocks and look for lines on the left hand side of the trail (if I'm thinking of the same section as you). Try the xc course at cwmcarn for a challenging climb - havent been there in a long time, someone said they'd smoothed it out a bit - but it was very hard a one point.
And penhydd isn't so bad - ok the climb is long espcially f the tank is getting empty - I tend to miss brashy track out because it first - turns into a swamp at the bottom, second is only essentailly a fire road descent and third you get a nice steep climb for your moment of thrill. skip straight onto hidden valley. And as for the sections between the switch backs, dead sheep gulley etc, if you can peddle it all - it can be so fast and flows so well - especially dead sheep gulley. Try it again sometime when you've got more energy and make sure you really peddle out the long singletrack secions - very are alot of fun at speed - but i guess its what you like - if you like the very technical descents of the black run, windy point, energy etc - do those and also woth doing the wall too for the final descent more than anything - quite fast in places :-)Lapierre Spicy 516 XTR custom (2013) -http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10017&t=129323320 -
i think your being unfair on Penhydd, sure the climb is a slog, but, some of the sections are my fave's anywhere, doing it after whites was prob a bad idea, as it makes it all feel a lot less fun when your knackerd.I like bikes and stuff0
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Nice report, very similar to my experience a couple of months back. My first trip and rode Whites first, loved the climb due to its concentration levels and loved the ride down. Windy Point was my favourite as it just flowed and flowed, Energy was superb but I ended the morning with a nasty over-the-bars moment at the bottom of Graveyard.
Afternoon we did Penhydd but I was too knackered to enjoy it...at all! The climb killed me and I fell off so many times on the way down that I lost all confidence and my speed slowed to a snails pace.... next time will be better though Adam.
Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Current ride - Yeti ASR 5a X00 -
joshtp/mbukman wrote:i think your being unfair on Penhydd, sure the climb is a slog, but, some of the sections are my fave's anywhere, doing it after whites was prob a bad idea, as it makes it all feel a lot less fun when your knackerd.
We did also find that last time we did 2 runs in a day with W2 being our chosen route that day. Spoiled the Wall to a great extent for us.
Some old boy told us about the cut through for Brushey, but we thought as it was out first pop we'd do the lot.Salsa Spearfish 29er
http://superdukeforum.forumatic.com/index.php0 -
Also rode Afan today, decided to do W2 to make the most of the day, due to it getting dark by 4! Didn't particularly like the initial 3-4 mile cycle-track to the first proper off road bit, and there was a lot of road sections, which got quite repetitive.
Abolutely loved whites trail (My recommendation to anyone doing just one trail) especially the boardwalk section and final decent.
After riding back up to windy point and over to the wall, was absolutely knackered so the decent was a slow pace, also very slippy.
But still a good day,
Although would recommend twrch at cwmcarn due to pure trail thrills, and no road sections (little bit of fireroad at the top)0
