Snowdon?

little wiser

Hi anyone up for doing this before the voluntary bike ban comes into force?.
Also has any one done it and care to shed some light on what its like?.

pj101

It's my favourite ride. I tend to do it during weekday summer evenings though, outside the hours of the bike ban, and the mountain is relatively quiet. Bit of a slog up onvolving carrying/pushing, but all worth it for the downhill.

miss notax

We are doing this on 28th April (an ever-increasing group of us!)

Never done it before but very much looking forward to it!!

DodgeT

Have a read here, some good info http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20007&t=12836577

foxc_uk

My mate's done it...
http://www.tomgeraghty.co.uk/2010/11/05 ... p-snowdon/

sdavies141

Where do you cycle down?

I assume that it goes down the rail side to llanberis, but it would be great to go along the miners / pyg track :-)

little wiser

Thank you all for taking the time to post, for those that have done it would you think i should be ok to do it alone, as all my riding buddys have either sold there bikes or just plan lazy .

little wiser

foxc_uk wrote:

My mate's done it...
http://www.tomgeraghty.co.uk/2010/11/05 ... p-snowdon/

Good link and interesting reading, thanks.

DodgeT

little wiser wrote:

Thank you all for taking the time to post, for those that have done it would you think i should be ok to do it alone, as all my riding buddys have either sold there bikes or just plan lazy .

Although it can be a busy place, don't forget, it is a mountain and a lot can change with the weather and there's lots of potential for hurting yourself. Also, the ride up will be feckin boring on your own.

I wouldn't do it on my own for both of those reasons.

Regarding route, simple answer is llanberis path up, llanberis path down.

Sam, come do it with me when your bikes fixed.

bluechair84

Nooo, Llanberis up, Rangers down. I want to do the Pyg Track one day but it's proper DH worthy. So much of it is scary large steps and steep as hell. Plus, it doesn't descend all they way to Llanberis so if you were to ride up Llanberis path, you'd spend much of the descent on tarmac back to the village.
I'm planning on doing it April 2/3/4 ish if anyone want so do Llanberis up, Rangers > telegraph down.

DodgeT

Have you done it though bluechair?
I did beris up, rangers/telegraph down and it aint all that..
Next time is beris up and down for me. There's more tarmac on telegraph than beris route.

bluechair84

I've ridden up / down llanberis half a dozen times, only walked the telegraph route though and been up Snowdon via various other routes too. The trouble with Llanberis down is after the boulder-steps near the top, there's virtually no challenge. Nice, wide and fast. Plus there's lots of walkers on the Llanberis path. But, Once I've actually ridden Rangers rather than just walked it, maybe I'd change my mind. I'm looking forward to doing it though.

DodgeT

Hmm, know what you mean. Copying from my post in the thread I linked above;

Up and down llanberis for me. People rave about rangers and telegraph valley (for the descent), but for me it consisted of this ;
couple hundred yds of rocky stuff
fast flattish stuff
bit of really loose scree
tight switchbacks bout 6 - 10
real gnarly rock section about 50yds
then flat with stupid metal water bars all the way to telegraph valley
TV is just a paved section, again with loads of water bars
bit of tarmac to finish

as opposed to llanberis route which starts off the same so;
couple hundred yds of rocky stuff
fast flattish stuff
then rocky lovely stuff all the way back down to the bottom

I may be wrong how I remember it, but the thing that sells beris for me is the length. I can do stuff similarly "gnarly" and lentghwise to the bits on rangers round here / in the peaks if you find your spots.

Whereas beris path, dont know but must be approx 4 miles long, of very good, turning into good stuff almost all the way. Not many places get the opportunity for it.

Even better bet is to do it twice. Morning up and down before kerfew. have a spot of lunch etc mooch about in llanberis, then back up after the kerfew

bluechair84

Oh, I tell a lie, I've ridden down Tele after doing Moel Elio, and walked Rangers. The water bars section are a bit of a motorway, just super high speed and bunny hop the bars so yeah, pretty simple really. I do love coming down the Llanberis but at the speed it can be done in reduces its re-play value for me. Pyg Track however would be the biggest challenge of them all. Shame so much of the descent would be on road back to Llanberis (I say this thinking that parking up there is a pain, and getting to the top of Pyg would be easier just riding up from Llaneris).
I'm thinking of doing a blog post around double-hard-black runs, the way I remember Pyg would be good for that.

DodgeT

Well we stood and had a look down the pyg track and thought "faaaaaaaaaaaarrkkk!!!" it was all real big stones / steps. Plenty of opportunity for a free helicopter ride though

mfereborn

Ive recently ridden down Snowdon, and pushed up (i dare say my current state of fitness would have me ride 80%+ of it) but to get up there you either need to be bloody fit and full of energy or stupidly determined if not.

In my opinion, its not worth it partly due to the lenght of time taken to get up versus down, and then the amount of people that will be on it now as there were a lot when i did it.

One im considering next is a circular of the Glyder's and i reckon that will be much nicer.

pablofandango

we did this twice last saturday in the glorious sunshine
up Llanberis, down Rangers, up the pyg track and finally down Llanberis.
Going up the Pyg was tough, going down on a bike would practically guarantee you a helicopter ride.
I enjoyed the llanberis descent mor than the rangers - but we were heading towards the pub

pablofandango

Oops it wasn't the pyg we did it was the rhydd ddu

slowslowslow

Glad you said that pablofandango..! have walked all the routes and intend riding it one way or the other sooner rather than later. If anyone could cycle the pyg track (which im sure they can) I would give them massive respect!

Glyders would be mental-if you took in Tryfan you could bunny hop Adam and Eve.........