Afan first time?

daj

The mrs has booked us into the Afan lodge for 4 days!! 8)

Never been before, so just after some advise really to help me along

Not reallly at my peak fitness at the moment :oops: and always been bit of a wuss so looking for nothing to epic but more enjoyable?

Trailrakers or high rollers? :?

Would it be advisable to get some body armour? :shock:

Cheers

daj

Stu T

just take a bike mate and enjoy

Beanhead Bucko

I'm going up on the 30th for my first time, can't wait. My bike is currently factory standard and I'm not really bothered.

Have fun mate

gb2gw

I just got back from Afan/Cwmcarn/Brechfa yesterday! Hope the weather holds for you - it was absolutely bone dry and bright sunshine every day we were there

As for advice to what trails to do... not sure what sort of thing you normally ride, but the trails that are open there at the moment are Skyline, Whites and the Wall. W2 that you'll see signposted there and mentioned is basically the Wall and Whites trail combined.
Whites is what they tout as their most technical trail there and if that's your thing then you'll love it. I did. Lots of variety too - stretches of boardwalk, rocky stuff, woodsy singletrack and a cracking singletrack climb. Rode the Wall yesterday and in comparison it's more of a fire road climb and the trail is less technical and more swoopy and smooth.

I personally preferred Whites, but the Wall was a great way to spend a Monday morning with the forest to ourselves!

The Skyline trail is the longest out of all three, and I've never ridden it so can't give personal experiences of it. One to do if you want to be out in the saddle between 4-7hrs (the guide time for its 46km length.)

If you normally ride with armour then worth taking it along here. I personally never have and didn't here either and didn't come a cropper.

Good luck and have fun!

LjStronge

Skyline is LONG!

I'm not super fit and by the time I got to the final 6k descent (awesome by the way) my body was broken.

My least favourite thing is uphill fire road and Skyline has a lot of it!

If I were I would do the The Wall. I have great fun doing that and at the time I was on a heavy V Brake Land Rover bike!

Andymtb

Skyline doesn't have to be done in full. There are two shorter sections one is known as the July trail. Take a course map with you (available in the shop) and you can see where you can take a short cut. If I remember rightly it's about marker 18.

For an alternative to doing White's downhill you can turn right at the top of the climb and join in the on Skyline's last 6k downhill.

Enjoy.

Stu T

Big parts of Skyline are still shut I believe

othello

Me and 3 friends did Afan for the first time 2 weeks ago and had a great time.

We did White's first. Tough climb up, but the singletrack gives more variety than a straight fireroad grind. We looped off and did the black run at the top. Great fun. Be warned the rock garden near the end is *steep*. Main descent from the top of the hill down is great. Lots of variety. I became over confident and stacked it in the woods though! Big gash on my knee, infection set in and have just finished a course of antibiotics

We did The Wall on the Sunday. I hated the fireroad climbs which were boring really. Descents were good fun, and the sharp left drop made it interesting. The final descent was one of may favourite bits of the whole weekend.

All in all, a great trip and we'll be back!