Coed-y-Brenin: Beast trail.

JayKingFunk

I'm off to ride the beast the weekend after this one for my mates stag do and wondered if anyone on here could share their experience of what it's like?

I'll be riding a long travel, steel frame hard tail. Any suggestions of tyre pressure if the weather keeps hot and sunny?

It looks like quite a long ride so not sure how much to put in them in terms of comfort and grip etc. I don't often do rides this long!

Am I right in thinking there is a cafe half way round too?!

Cheers, J.

lostboysaint

Tyre pressures should be whatever you're comfortable with, not some prescribed number given on a forum. There's only one or two rocky patches where you may want a bit extra to avoid rim damage.

Yes, there's a VERY good cafe halfway round. Complete bastard of a climb out of it though

tsenior

yep swing and roundabouts for comfort vs pinch resistance: unless you run them really low go with whatever you usually have.

there is a bit right at the start which serves as an intro or possibly a qualifier: its as rocky as any of the following parts. if after that you think you might get away with a bit less pressure then let some air out. or if you think you might pinch flat on similar stuff put some more in.

Stu 74

Sound advice from Tsenior. There is a 5km fireroad section immediately after the halfway cafe which can be cut out by going straight up a steep 1km tarmac climb. Download the trail map and take a copy with you. I take it all of the stag partu are experienced riders - this is not a trail for beginners!

Stu

tsenior

hey stu, which bit of flintshire? -i'm near wxm (brynteg)

to the OP:

make the stag wear a gimp suit and fill his camelback with jaegermeister: he's not there to have a good time.

JayKingFunk

Cheers for that guys.

All experienced riders but there are a couple that are a bit slow!

I'm not sure what they have planned for the stag but I think it will definitely involve him wearing something uncomfortable and embarrassing - just what you want for a demanding 38km ride with a mild hangover!

Have any of you guys ridden 'The Wall' at Afan? Just wondering how it compares in terms of the amount of climbing!

STU74: Cheers for the shortcut, think we'll welcome it!

Rocketmagnet

It's not that technical really.. just a couple of rocky sections that need care but
most of it's fast flowing stuff. You could probably get away with pretty firm pressures
as i dont recall any nasty slippy stuff - so considering it's a longer ride firm might
see you round with less effort (especially with a hangover in a mankini).

As for the short cut... it does cut out some dull fireroad but you wont have ridden the beast.. just part of it .

JonnyN

I rode the beast last week. Ran quite high pressures in my Maxxis ardent at the back, slightly less (but still high) pressure on the front in my Panaracer Fire XC Pro. Rolled just fine and no punctures whatsoever.

There is a lot of boring climbing and some uphill singletrack. There are some quite technical trails but everything is rollable, just stay off the front brake.

pilsburypie

I've done the beast and the Dragons Back. Although they were almost a year apart I thought that the Dragons Back was damn near all of the beast but 8-10Km shorter. I wasn't too sure what I got extra in the beast apart from a bit of extra leg burn.

That aside they are both excellent fun and I shall certainly be returning.

Thoughts?

JonnyN

The beast is Dragon's Back and MBR put together...

Adam and Eve is good fun!

Stu 74

tsenior wrote:

hey stu, which bit of flintshire? -i'm near wxm (brynteg)

From Buckley originally but recently moved to the Oswestry area.

Stu

Anonymous

JonnyN wrote:

just stay off the front brake.

JonnyN

Why?

Anonymous

I can't believe you're suggesting on an MTB forum that someone should stay off the front brake. It's the one that slows you down.
Where the hell has all this rear brake nonsense started? It's spreading like a poor-technique-cancer here recently.

lostboysaint

But to be fair it only accounts for about 70% of your braking!

Anonymous

70% sounds like a figure plucked from the air. You can do all your decelerating with the front brake, and use the back one for throwing the back end round when needed.

lostboysaint

yeehaamcgee wrote:

70% sounds like a figure plucked from the air. You can do all your decelerating with the front brake, and use the back one for throwing the back end round when needed.

It's a figure plucked from the air based on just about every article ever written about braking on bikes given the wheel position, braking force direction, weight transfer etc.

There's ways of making rear braking more effective (dynamic weight transfer over back wheel etc.) but it's still really, really inefficient as you know, 'cos you've raised the comment and quite rightly. After all, we all know from when we woz kidz which one skidded the bestest!

Anonymous

The really useless thing about the rear brake is that, the more you're decelerating, the less effective it becomes.

lostboysaint

Sorry, for the avoidance of doubt I was meaning that 70% of your braking efficiency is with your FRONT brake. (I've just read the thread again and 'cos I didn't quote Yeehaa there may have been an element of doubt!)

JonnyN

I was mainly making the comment about the steep drops and steps etc that you come across on the Beast. I wasn't suggesting everyone should remove the front brake from their bikes. I've seen many times people merely dabbing the front brake on steep decents, the most recent resulting in a new front wheel.

Anonymous

That's got nothing to do with front brakes though, that's to do with general riding technique, and panicking.
likewise, I've seen plenty of people run wide on corners and have close encounters of the tree kind, because they were trying to slow down using their rear brake.

JonnyN

yeehaamcgee wrote:

That's got nothing to do with front brakes though, that's to do with general riding technique, and panicking.
likewise, I've seen plenty of people run wide on corners and have close encounters of the tree kind, because they were trying to slow down using their rear brake.

Well it has got something to do with the front brake, as when he pulled it, that was the exact moment he went over the bars and buckled the front wheel beyond repair. However, I do agree with the technique and panicking bit ....this is why he pulled the front brake. He should have just left the front brake alone and he would have ridden the section just fine.

Anonymous

It's worth noting that pulling the back brake on a drop can lead to disasters too. Front wheel in the air, bike travelling mostly forwards. Pull the rear brake, and it will effectively slam the front end down, hard.

Thewaylander

yup your bailing, wasn't due to brakes but due to your mate getting all pete tong mate.

I say use both your brakes in a sensible manner, Little back can pull things into line, or let you get loose and fun, the front stops you it's buggering easy :P

JonnyN

yeehaamcgee wrote:

It's worth noting that pulling the back brake on a drop can lead to disasters too. Front wheel in the air, bike travelling mostly forwards. Pull the rear brake, and it will effectively slam the front end down, hard.

Yes.

Northwind

The beast's fab... Oh, about halfway round there's a completely pointless fireroad loop that you can shortcut out and miss out nothing of interest- after Hermon, before Gomez. It shows a singletrack section on the map right in the top right corner, there isn't any. So, you can just ride up the (rather steep) tarmac road instead and cut out a few km and a bit of fireroad descending. Gah I hates me the fireroad descending.

Also, the very first bit and the very last form a nice little loop of almost total excellence.

Anonymous

Flat out fireroad descending is great fun, crank it over, keep the speed up and drift round the bends at 40 mph. Just a different kind of fun.

Northwind

Aye, fair point well made. Though there's better times to do it than half way round the Beast I reckon

Kielder's got a hilarious fireroad descent down from the viewpoint... The road's completely trashed and has a load of natural drops and jumps and a couple of seriously broken up drifty bits... Crap but in a good way. Or maybe the other way round. But it takes forever to get to the top.

Anonymous

A few weeks ago, I did the Tarw and the MBR in one go. For some reason that seemed to destroy me physically, a great deal more than the Beast did.

Northwind

Tarw took a surprising amount out of me, I couldn't stop charging basically... Such a good trail. Man I want to get back there.

JonnyN

Did enjoy Tarw...