The carpets were to die for, but the beer was cheap (Speckled hen £2.70), the food plentiful, good and also cheap.
Having met up with Piers in the bar for some food and a couple of pints, we retired (to separate rooms) to ensure we had plenty of rest before the ride on Saturday. Piers had ridden The Blade, that day (good but pretty muddy).
After a good breakfast we headed over to Afan and met Alex and Ben in the car park and set off to ride Penhydd lacking most of the tree cover, it's still enjoyable and a pretty good introduction to the joys of Trail Centres for Ben who is new to mountain biking and was riding a 29er Hardtail.
Alex seemed to spend a fair bit of time pushing up the fire roads
I have to say that Ben did really well and having followed him for some of the trails, he wasn't holding back.
A quick swap to Alex's bike seem to bring out the hooligan in Ben
First blood went to Ben
A stop for lunch when only I had proper hot food and then on to Y Wal a bit more technical than Penhydd with some fantastic descents.
we paused for a quick stop at the bike park where Ben managed to draw some more blood.
Just over 19 miles of riding and 950m of climbing.
Alex and Ben were heading back over the border, but Piers and I will be at Cwmcarn tomorrow, I hope I have something left in my legs for the climb, because as Piers was telling me all day, it's a long hard slog. I can't remember, despite riding there 2 or 3 times previously, I hope it's not that bad that I have erased the painful memories from my brain.
I have some video of Penhydd, but I forgot to turn the second camera off to save it for Y Wal, so pretty much no filming for the second ride of the day. I'll post the Video up when I get a chance to edit it. (now added)
140315 afan.mp4 from mark holttum on Vimeo.
No comments:
Post a Comment