We (H, Suds, Spud and Colgie) headed to Coed y Brenin on Sunday 22 November to tackle a man-made / natural trail combo. We managed an early start from Warwick/Coventry and were able to stop for an inaginatively priced breakfast bap at Telford services.
Thanks to the genearal lack of pace of Spud's "A-team" van, we eventually arrived at the Coed y Brenin visitor centre at about 10:15am and were riding by 10:30am. After the opening climb, the first man-made section "Cain" warmed us up, and allowed Spud to get his first six or seven crashes of the day out of his system!
Sudders rides "Cain"
The real fun then started with the first natural section. Lots of rain meant an almost frictionless trail with lots of crash potential! The next vid shows Barry and Paul Chuckle giving it max....
The chuckle brothers - there is a great moment from 1 minute onwards....
From here we met with the closure of a man-made section and headed to tackle another natural section instead before breaking new ground with a steep natural section we'd never riden before....
Sudders rides a "steeper than it looks" natural section at Coed y Brenin
From here we faced a horrible hike-a-bike up what had become a stream and completed the "Plunge Pool" steep switchback descent (helmetcam footage ruined by water/mud on the lens), the "Ant Hill" descent and headed to the Dolfrwynog cafe for some refuelling.
We were all tiring by this point, so the next steep road climb was tough. The man-made descent was good fun though, despite the "dumbing down" that has occured over the last few years.
Colgie and Spud ride Morticia at Coed y Brenin
Hedd rides "Lurch" at Coed y Brenin
As we reached the bottom of the descent, the wind picked up and the rain began to fall again, so we quickly hammered up the last climb for some fun on the final descents. The next vid starts well, with Sudders hitting some good jumps and drops. Unfortunaltly we then hit some traffic, and it gets a bit dark. There is a bonus for those that stick with it to the end though!
Sudders rides "Begining of the end" at Coed y Brenin
All in all, a great day. Despite the rain, we rode until it got too dark to continue and whilst the rain made everything really slippy, this just added to our fun! Here's the GPS tracklog of our route....
