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Welsh Wales.

We're going over August Bank Holiday Weekend. Plan is to leave Newcastle around midday on Friday 26th August as soon as Jason finishes with his accountant - first things first! We should get near the town of Dolgellau (pronounced "Dolgethlie" I think!) in Snowdonia some time before 6.00pm to get settled into our accommodation. THIS TRIP IS FOR THE LADIES ASWELL, not just the morons bikers.

Dolgellau is right where it hurts for the trails at Coed y Brenin, Snowdonia, North Wales, Gwydyr Forest, Betws-y-Coed, North Wales, Machynlleth, Mid Wales, Nant-yr-Arian, Mid Wales. These links will take you to MTBWales.com, thanks to them for the info.

We may not get on them all but we'll sure have a go. Here's the party:

Andy + Mandy, David + Lindsay, Jason + Michelle, Terry + Janet

Watch here a week later for full report, maybe.

WE MADE IT!

Lindsay, David, Janet & Terry set off about 11.00 am taking the Tyne Tunnel south then onto the A1. They sent a text to Jason following who had left later with Michelle, Mandy and Andy - each pair in their own car. Michelle and Jasons' bikes were on Terry's trailer with his four but Andy had to carry his own two due to his race commitment in Cockerham near Morecambe on Monday. Once we knew that Jason was safely on his way we went cross-country via Brough on the A66 to Kendal and the M6. The Moto services at Lancaster were the rendezvous point, from where Andy lead Jason away with Terry at the back (sounds familiar).

It was a long drive at very legal speeds down to Dolgellau, where we arrived about 6.30pm. Here's Andy's superwide Rover All we wanted to do was sleep, but the Chip Shop was too inviting to ignore. This was outside: Don't know why, but this is what the pot held: Probably because the lady proprietress is an anti-social, condescending pig. Our hostess Maggie and her hubby (didn't get his name) made us very welcome in their sprawling town centre guest house.  We were mocked when we asked for somewhere secure for the bikes. "Leave them in the street - this is Wales!" she jibed. And this is what the Welsh mean by kitty litter! We retired early.

First stop in the morning was Welsh MTB Heaven aka Coed-y-Brenin. Or perhaps not. We got the bikes off the trailer and Andy's car and set the ladies Mandy, Michelle, Lindsay and Janet away on the yellow Fun Trail. Regular bike athletes Mandy and Michelle on the left, "why am I heres?" Janet and Lindsay on the  right. That lasted 30 seconds or so when Terry had to ride back down the first hundred feet of the Karrimor Trail to put the chain back on Lindsay's hired Claud Butler hardtail. It was OK after that. Actually this was a cute little machine (the one far right) if you need a steed for your better half. It has crappy RST's on the front but is a great girlie shape and pretty light for what must cost about three quid. The M & M's led the non-cycling L & J's home by half an hour, but fair play to all of them - they stuck it out and finished the six and a half mile ride, asthma attacks, "awful fly thingies" and all. Because of the tender nature of Lindsay's cycling bits, the bike was renamed a "Clawed Buttocks".

The gents were off on the Karrimor Trail at 38k or about 24 miles. Long fireroad climbs  interspersed with short bursts of singletrack, the first ones very rocky and after recent wet weather fairly treacherous. We talked to a few riders re-visiting the trail who reckoned it was in a very bad state since their last visits - don't know if that's the result of Mother Nature or the sheer number of visitors skidding down the chutes. That in itself is a real problem - I saw quite a few people descending the tricky bits with rear anchors jammed on, ripping the trail up. You can't really tell people to go easy unless you want a bruised face or to be called a clever sh*te. And we were guilty a few times ourselves (VERY few), but largely due to the speed of our descent and the wetness of the slowing down areas. Don't know what the ultimate answer is. What I do know is that this turned out to be very technical, very demanding on your concentration and also on your wrists and arms in particular. Oh, and we ALL came a cropper at least once. High speed prangs for David and Terry within a hundred metres of each other, a medium speed get-off for Jason and a good few scares, and a horrific but fortunately low-speed Flying W straight over the bars for Andy over a hesitant double stone whoop-de-do. Overall we didn't like it. I'll rephrase that. We didn't think the output matched the input. Too much wasted time and more importantly wasted effort travelling quickly down fireroads instead of singletrack or something in the trees. If this came before the Scottish trails then you can understand the difference - the Scotties obviously set out to improve on what Wales had. They've succeeded easily. Glentress, Kirroughtree, Innerleithen, Ae and even now Newcastleton have much, much more to offer in terms of payback for your effort. If you like to go fast you can get really wound up North of the Border on flowing downhills. Here there were too many sudden interruptions in the trail and very little flow at all. Sorry Dragon lovers everywhere. That's not to say it was a complete washout - there were some memorable bits, just nowhere near enough of them. And we weren't the only ones coming to this conclusion.

We returned to Dolgellau after rejoining the girls at the Visitor Centre and spent the evening having a meal in the Royal Ship Hotel. Don't expect fast service here. The place (Dolgellau) was packed as it had been the previous evening and it was difficult to find a place to sit and eat in. We'd had to book this on Friday night when we failed to find a seat.

On Sunday morning we dropped the girls at the edge of town to start their flat ride along the Mawddach Trail to the coast at Barmouth.  This follows the old railway line which runs alongside the current track. They were lucky enough to see a steam train chugging along behind them at one point. We saw the same one later on from a slightly different viewpoint. Here's Lord Lichfield snapping the Valleys -

At the Big Meeting on Saturday night Terry had suggested not going back to Coed y Brenin to do the Red Bull Trail and whatever else was there in favour of a trip to nearby Machynlleth, 15 miles to the south to sample the fairly new Climach-X Trail. What a difference a few miles and a few years trail improvement makes! Or maybe what a difference the Scottish 7Stanes trails have made to this part of Wales! We'd had to leave David back at the digs watching England and Australia hit each other with balls with bats as his back was done in completely. Nothing to do with yesterday's crash, but damage from the gym on Tuesday. What a shame he had to miss this. Also a shame that Andy's lovely new FSR suffered some top tube damage on the trailer - this is probably the last photo of it in pristine nick   The Climach-X was just like it sounds. Here's some recent wind damage - Although it started in similar fashion to yesterday at Coed y Brenin with a good chunk of boring fireroad climb (don't move your foot, Jason) and a few bits of singletrack, the end was well worth waiting for and the singletrack sections were much nicer to ride. At last there was a bit of flow in the trails to get the old juices flowing. After missing out a decent piece of singletrack here which we went back and completed out of sequence, we headed towards the climax of the Climach-X Trail. This involved a bit of a slog upwards to start with but then took us to the Final Frontier. Billed as "the longest downhill in Wales" (or was that the longest singletrack?) at about 5 kilometres, we'd just arrived at the gate when blow me if Jason didn't get a puncture - first and only one all weekend between eight bikes! Anyway, we set off to complete the last section stopping to gasp at the view down to Machynlleth You can see a shot just like this on the front of a recent MBR. Yep, even Jason got his camera out! Here's Jason and Andy checking the bikes at the end of the ride. Shame they hadn't done that before we left!  Here's happy IronMan Andy - because the next bit is UP! Jason doesn't share his obvious joy.

By the way, don't expect any advice or very much help from the bike shops in Dolgellau. One's never open and the other is run by someone who can ride a bike, opens late and has no idea what his prices are or the best trails!

Story will continue over the next few days, time permitting... videos coming (naff).