The great north / south divide Wales odyssey carefully stitched together MTB styleee takes us to trail pastures new and old with amazing trail memories through the spine of Wales down and out the other side! A little short on numbers goats n chicks wise was filled by bags of ‘OMG!’, ‘f’me!’ and ‘how good was that!’
Day 1 – Antur Stiniog – wasn’t sure what to expect but having hit the DH runs the 6-inch travel bike just coped with the blue sprinkled with a little red. That’s not to say you can’t have bags of fun on the blue and push the limits, Anita can testify to that! Venture outside the realms of the blue and you most certainly need a big rig and need to be on your game, and if you want to do other things like wood work, the use of tools as a drum sander is perfect for this kind of work.
We found the ideal Guest House (Isallt Guest House, Festiniog) if not one of the best we have stayed at over the years, ticked all the right boxes. What a great place to come back to after an all seasons in one day DH adventure; awesome host, breakfast, juices, coffee, cake right in the town of Bleanau Ffestiniog.
Day 2 – Driving south down the spine of Wales past Coedy, to Machynlleth to hit the Cli-machx or should we say “ANTI-climax” ?! After and 11K ascent we were all excited and ready for the 4K technical whaaahoo descent and it was closed – no mention of it at the start! Kinda narked you off a bit then to top it off the bike shop had gone out of business and lunch was in the soap dodgers, pot smoking, Greenpeace activist, basil brush eaters paradise! Anita was in Veggie heaven.
Onwards and southwards past, Rhayader, Caersws scene of some past DH memories, Builth Wells and what was then Merida events and bugger me were in the Forest of Dean!