South Wales Tour 2023

The four of us hired cross-country mountain bikes to take on some of Afan Forest's legendary trails. We were all either new, or hadn't done any proper mountain biking for a long time, so we decided to take on the blue grade trail: Blue Scar.

Having previously only ridden Whites Level, which begins at the Glyncorrwg Mountain Bike Centre, I hadn't realised that blue scar actually starts about 8Km further down the valley. Fortunately the major trails are connected by a path along the disused South Wales Mineral Raiway to Cymer, then the former Rhondda and Swansea Bay line. The path gives relatively easy access, but an 8Km warm up was perhaps not ideal for this group.

Combined with lingreing brunch, and some fettling with the hire bikes, we didn't hit the trailhead until about one o'clock. The trail starts near the South Wales mining museum and slaloms up the mountain in a series of hairpins (switchbacks) and meandering forestry tracks. Near the top there are some great views, but it was a hard climb for the non/lapsed cyclists in the group.

On one steep loose section, the others dismounted to walk up. I took the opportunity to borrowe the fanciest mountian bike whilst its rider didn't need it. I dashed about 500m along and 40m up the climb, and then descended again on the beautiful full suspension model with a remote drop seatpost. The proper 'single track' sections are a strict one-way system, so I could only try it on the relativly mundane forestry track - but it was still quite fun.

Once we had all reached the top of the climb for Bluescar, and I was back on my own hire bike, I split off from the group to climb to the top of the more technical (red grade) Penhydd trail. The proprietor of Glyncorrwg mountain bike centre had tipped us off that there is a cut through that allows you to rejoin blue scar after Penhydd's 'big dipper' section.

At the top of Penhydd, having just overtaken a chap on a cyclocross/gravel bike in my haste I forgot to drop my seat post - making control 'interesting' on the first section named 'widowmaker'. Fortunately it didn't live up to its name (or maybe it did since I'm technically unmarried?) and proved a straight, but rough run. I remembered to configure the bike properly for the 'big dipper'.

My jaunt on Penhydd took just shy of 15 minutes, and I got some nice helmet cam footage of Penhydd https://youtu.be/eW75-TgJa7g . After breifly heading off on the wrong trail, I managed to rejoin the group on Bluescar having only been away for about 20 minutes.

It was around this point that I realised that someone in the group had only recenttly learned to ride a bike (at all - not just the mountain kind). The fact that they had looked so proficient that this hadn't bene apparent until now is amazing, but by the time I rejoined a significant fall had happned. Although its only 'blue' the decent of Blue Scar can be challenging in places, so it took a little over an hour for the group to complete the decent (of which I was with them for about 50 minutes).

The complete lap of Blue Scar had taken almost exactly three hours, and it had taken 45 minutes to reach the trail head. As a result, the deadline for returning the hire bikes was looming and we had 8Km to return up the valley and with a pretty exhausted group. With our late start, this meant we only managed the single lap, but at least we made it back (just in the nick of time for five o'clock closing).

We capped the day off with a camp fire and s’mores, relaxing in our camp chairs and warm ponchos. We also had some serious science to do - a three way taste test between Dandies, Freedom 'mallows and Marks and Spencer Plant Kitchen Marshmallows. Paired with home made graham-crackers, they make a great camp treat - Plant Kitchen won the popular vote, although I remain loyal to Dandies.

A little later in the evening the weather turned: some quite heavy rain came in and my old tent (bought second hand to begin with) started to show its age. The seam seals had all perished letting in considerable, but thankfully not catastrophic, amounts of water.Leia mais