As Paul and I were in South Wales yesterday for a friends wedding we
decided to make a weekend of it and take the munis for a ride at
Cwmcarn. The Twych Trail has been created in an area of Forestry Commision
land, its a 15km trail with about 300m of climbing, it is a built trail
but looks more natural than those at CyB as the surfacing is less rocky.
From the carpark the climbing starts straightaway 5km of climbing with
occasional little downward bits to ease the legs slightly. Many of the
twowheelers miss this section out and use the Tarmac road to climb up
the valley, we did the trail and it was rideable, tiring, consitantly
technicial enough to require concentration but rideable ( for as long as
the energy held out).Paul thinks Roger will love it! The trail is cut into
the hillside and has some off camber sections to add to the challenge.
Beyond the sculpture park the trail takes a fire road and the real climb
begins. we met a bunch of bikers at the point where the trail leaves the
fire road and climbs on single track, they let us go first! Thanks
guys. Once we had walked up most of that bit it was back onto yet more
rideable but up hill fire road all the way to the top of the mountain.The
view formthe top was great, we could se the Bristol Channel and Lundy
Island and off way in the distance was the bulk of the Qunatocks where we
had stood a few weeks ago looking at Lundy and the Channel from the other
side.
The Downhill section of the trail began with a swoopy section , lovely to
ride but getting progressivly harder as it dropped down the hill side
finishing that section with a really tricky little steep bit down to a
car park, I was very chuffed I cleaned that section and had a brief
teletubbie moment- again again . The trail entered
some woodland for a bit and ran in a switchback kind of a way for a
few km. Mixing short thuggish ups with short sweet downs it generally
contoured along the side of the hill. When we left the shelter of the
trees it was to cross a clear cut area on a rising path which eventully
brought us to a saddle between two hills.
As we had been told by the bikers that there was no more major climbing I
was a little surprised when the trail dropped over the “wrong” side of the
saddle rather than down into the valley with the vistor centre and car
park in. But we found out they had it right as the trail soon started to
wind its way along the hillside, narrow and off camber with a couple of
rocky drop off this was a challenging section.Once it eased off and were
back in the trees with rather less exposure below us the trail turned
realy good fun. This was a fast swoopy solid trail, a little up and down
but nothing major, we blasted along it.
As we left the trees and entered another clear cut area the sun was out,
the views across the valley and down the valley were great and we realised
we were right above the village Cwncarn and therefore couldn’t be too far
from the end. We rounded the sholder of the hill and the wind hit us,
hard, as we started to drop down diagonally acros the hill. Paul could
bearly see for his eye watering in the wind and had two upds on that
section. I cleaned it but Paul claims thats only cos I wear glasses so my
eyes didn’t get so wind blown. Whatever, it was fun techie down hill
stuff, quite rocky and still only a narrow off camber shelf cut into the
hill side.
The last part of the decent took us back into woodland, a skiiny path
carpeted in beech leaves that became harder and harder to ride as it got
steeper and pockmarked with braking hollows left by the two wheelers. A
trail that was only munied would never get those…Finally we rolled down
the last few yards and twisted round the rocks at the end to emerge into
the car park just in time to hear one of the bikers say “look
unicycists” to his mates.
We didn’t hang around to show off as the cafe was calling loud and clear
to a very hungry Paul. Over Saus egg and chips we decided that Cymcarn is
a very fine place to ride indeed, and at only 2 hours drive from home its
value per hour driven is rather higher than CyB. The riding is a little
less technicial but far more sustained. Of the 15km we had done 13km was
on single track, much of the climbing was on rideable single track and the
views had been fantastic.The cafe is not bad, the staff had been happy to
fill up our Platy bladders and the car park is free.The locals tell us
that there is lots of other legal riding in the area. I think we will be
going back and can recommend the Trail to others.
sarah
–
Union of UK Unicyclists
By and for UK riders