Afan Forest 2015

I have been going to Afan forest in Wales for several years now. Duncan has also come down
there several times and this time Malcolm D on his first visit.

Malcolm has been going out to Bedgebury Forest to do a loop of that before meeting us for
the Bewl circuit to get into practise for the miles of singletrack riding in Afan.

Afan has 4 main routes , there is Skyline which we never do as this is tour of 46k around the
high firebreaks in the Forest. It has tremendous views but little singletrack. There is then
Whites Level and The Wall which can be combined to make a 44k route . These have lots of singletrack riding both climbing and descending.




There is then Penhydd which is quite a lot of singletrack and finally Blade which is the
newest trail and cost £360,000 to build about a year ago. This trail is the best there with some
steep singletrack fast birms and forest tracks.

So we arrived at about 3.30 and were on the trails by 4 . We did Whites Level then Penhydd
with me and others doing part of it where Duncan and Malc climbed to the top to do it all.
This was 4 hours riding. The pub is on the way back so stopped off for a couple of pints then
back to the house we stay at for bangers and mash cooked expertly by Tim whose father
Chris organises this trip.

Next day we tackled Blade this takes about 4 hours and has some great trail riding .The climb
to the start however takes about an hour. Half way up Duncans chain broke. I keep telling him
you do sometimes have to change gear to get uphill. Luckily we all joined in with Chris
supplying the missing link .Duncan had his chain spliter and Malcolm had a length of chain
as 2 links were wrecked.

Malcolm was really getting into the riding but on the last run down to the village had a rare
misjudgement and came off buckling his front wheel badly. He then had to try and straighten
it out as it would not turn in the forks . He pushed so hard it took him off balance and he fell
back over the edge of the track and hurt his back. This was the only injury of the trip!!
He made a reasonable job of getting wheel to turn but a new rim is needed.

After lunch we split group into 2 groups of 3 with me deciding which to go with. The others
had found blade a tough morning and did not want to climb much. Duncan and Malc wanted
to climb to the top again to do The wall. I decided to do the Wall . It’s a long climb on
firebreak but mostly climbing through woods on singletrack. Eventually you get to a café in
the middle of nowhere . It was just closing but the nice lady made us a well needed coffee.
After a slight direction error we got on the track called zig zag which takes you all the way to
the bottom and its name is exactly what it does. This route takes you a long way from our
start and we have then a steady climb of about 7k on a dissused railway track but we know
this railway track leads to a station ( which is now a pub). The others were still there so we
joined them for a beer and then they went off to start the dinner. We stayed on for another
beer but it was about 7pm by then and the midges were out in force and I got bitten so bad I
had to leave the others to get away from them.

Tim made an excellent curry for dinner.

Sunday is always a difficult day as by then getting tired and the drinks from evening before.
We often talk ourselves out of it but with Duncan and Malc this was not going to happen so
the others decided to call it a day ,and we headed back to Penhydd . This has a blue run called
scar that the others had done the previous day so the plan was to do that. I started but had run
out of steam so turned on next bailout point. Duncan and Malc did Blue scar then decided to
do Penhydd from halfway . These runs start at a mountain bike centre so I was happy to go to
the café and let them go for it . It was a hot sunny day and so I was more then happy to chill
and we were on the road home by noon


Derek