Wales

phz

Planning a trip with the bikes to Wales in May - not been before so after some advice.

I'm a hardtail confidently 'red' level rider and my wife has a competent HT machine but isn't happy yet on anything harder than a blue.

Which welsh centre(s) would be best to base our stay near?

From what I can read/see on Youtube Brechfa might fit the bill?

slainte :?: rob

Anonymous

Penmachno. Finest trail in the country. But it's not a trail centre, so much, just a car park, and er... a trail!

welshkev

brechfa does have blue red and black trails (maybe even a green?)

where you coming from? as afan is only about an hour ish from brechfa

jon.lane

Brechfa is pretty good. would have everything there you need. Afan is real good but not much there for your wife as the Penhydd trail is still under construction. SO its just red's and blacks Have a look up Breacon. there are some very good blue and green up there with a few red is she's feeling a bit daring. check out www.mbwales.com for a full list of most of what's on offer

phz

Thanks for the replies everyone.

We are coming from East Anglia / East Midlands and would probably look at staying somewhere around Brecon so we were fairly 'central' south Wales.

slainte rob

welshkev

you say 'central' but brecon isn't really that close to any of the trail centres. all of them would be at least an hours drive away, you obvioulsy have all the great riding in the beacons and it's really nice around that area but if it's predominentaly a riding holiday i'd consider somewhere else

phz

An hours drive would be OK.

I looked at Brecon as a base since I'm also a bit of a foodie and wanted to be able to get to Matt Tebbut and Steven Terry's restaurants (both near Abergavenny) too.

Not completely a riding holiday but I always like to find somewhere to go where I can squeeze at least a couple of days on the bike in.

Just looking at the MBwales site and the Beacons seem to have loads of blue & red graded 'natural' trails so still looks like a good bet to me as a visitor. Base ourselves there and make an excursion to Brechfa if we want a trail centre ride.

slainte :? rob

welshkev

sounds like you've got it sorted. like i said if you were going just to ride i'd recommend somewhere else but as you're not then it sounds perfect.

i've just remembered as well that there's a new visitors centre about 15 miles from brecon on the A470 on the way to merthyr, it has 2 blue trails, only short (about 3km IIRC) but are supposed to be quite good, they were designed by rowan sorell whose done brechfa, lee quarry etc. it's also got some nice scenery around there with some lakes and stuff oh yeah, it's called garwnant

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/recr ... itorCentre

Thewaylander

There is a ton trails in Brecon anyways most as good if not better than pure trail center mass hammered stuff.

http://www.mtbbreconbeacons.co.uk/

Has a map pack with around 30 well known brecon trails in rated up.

Briggo

Just going to steal this thread as Im off to the Brecons this Friday for a week, got the MTBBrecons pack as Waylander stated.

Anyone know of the trails and would recommend any? Taking the missus, so only want shortish routes to start with, short reds or the blues.

welshkev

garwnant visitors centre (about 15-20 mins drive towards merthyr on teh a470 from brecon has 2 short blue trails, designed by rowan sorrell of brechfa, lee quarry (and many more) fame.and there's a decent loop that goes from the brecon beacons visitors centre - on the same road as the garwnant centre but closer to brecon.

apart from that i don't know any 'easy' routes sorry mate

Briggo

Read up about the Garwnant visitors centre, the tracks are like 1/3 of a mile?

brad_boy

The Garwnant trails are for beginners and i'm not sure what you'd get from doing them tbh. From the read up it sounds they are designed with kiddies in mind