North Wales 2013

Wales 2013,

This year I have not written a lot of blogs, as in February I changed jobs. This has had an adverse effect on which type of riding I have done. Most of my off road riding was suspended, as I did not want to have an accident and have to take time off of work. So damage limitation was put in place. Road riding was done but not to the extent I would have liked.

This blog is about my ride to North Wales.

Day 1

I had no real intention to go on this trip to North Wales and I only booked the hotel on the Thursday before leaving.  It was only going to be a short weekend.  The norm is to travel up on the Friday, have half a day’s riding. Saturday would see a whole day of off road riding and then Sunday would see a good ride and a drive home. This weekend would see us leaving on the Saturday and then returning on the Sunday. Dave, who had organised the weekend had only visited the area once before to carry out a quick recci.

The day started early, I had done most of my prepping Thursday and Friday night, but I like to go over everything to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything.  At this point I had no idea of the logistics or that we were going to ride on the Saturday. By 7am Dave had picked me up and we were on our way. We made our way up the A1(m) to Biggleswade, we then pulled into Colin’s house where we met up with Colin and Dean.  All our equipment was then transferred into Colin’s van, once loaded we were on our way again.

 

Our destination for this trip would be, The Hand Hotel in Llangollen. This would be our base for the weekend and one that is used by many greenlaners.  As we made our way up the A1(m), then across A14, M6 and M54 into Wales the weather couldn’t make its mind up. The forecast was for a wet and wild weekend and it wasn’t disappointing us. The last part of the trip up took us along the A5 and into Llangollen. On our journey up we had stopped and taken on board some snacks, it was then I realised that we were in fact going to ride today.

 

On arrival at The Hand Hotel, which was just after midday, we booked in and put our luggage into our rooms. We then got changed in the van and got ready for the off.  The weather had settled down and was a mixture of broken cloud and sunshine with a slight but possible chance of rain. We headed west out of Llangollen along the A5 then turned left to go up into the mountains.

 

Autumn has just begun, the leaves had started to fall from the trees, carpeting the lanes and trails with a leafy cover and whilst some trees were still a lush rich green others were a bleached yellow, this left a broken, dappled leafy cover as we rode down the lanes, the bracken had also turned to a deep rusty brown on the mountain side, but in the woodland it had mostly stayed green.

The first lane was a lovely narrow lane cut into the side of the mountain.  To the left was a wooded steep bank with an understory of different coloured bracken, to the right was a steep drop off again wooded but fenced off and grazed by sheep, and at the bottom a river ran fast, bubbling white as it tumbled and flowed over the rocky  river bed.  About a quarter of the way along the lane, we found ourselves riding along a board valley floor and we crossed the river. We then climbed up the mountain for a while until once more it flattened out and we once again had to cross the stream. This time we had a choice as such, we could either cross via a small foot bridge that was railed or try to ride across the lower side. Although not that wide the river would be nearly impossible to ford.  The upper side has steep entries and exits, the lower side looked the easier option, however two factors remained.  Firstly was the rate at which the river was running, there had been a lot of rain fall and the flow of the river was fast, this could quite easily push you over. The second factor was the river bed itself, it was made up of large rocks and boulders; there was no flat gravel bottom to negotiate. The large rocks were covered in a thin film of algae which from past experience we knew to be as slippery if not more so than ice. This combined with the thought of drowning a bike so early on into our trip and how bloody cold the water would be left us really with only one option. The bridge.

The bridge was a simple affair, both sides were railed and the reason why became obvious once we attempted to cross. The floor of the bridge was covered in leaves, but as we started to cross we realised what it was made off. One large cut slab of thick Welsh slate. Under the leaves this slate was wet and covered in slim and was more slippery than an ell in baby oil. We helped each other across as there was a small step to get onto it but once momentum was lost the front wheel would wash out and the rear would just spin.

Once safely across the bridge we once again headed up the trail, only to be greeted by the next obstacle. This time it was a matter of fallen trees. The first of which wasn’t too much of a problem, as we could easily wheelie over it, but the ones that followed were. The river was once again on our right hand side and between us and it was a steep wooded bank. Even if we had managed to get down the bank, I very much doubt if we could have forded the river or got back up the bank to the trail. To our left was a steep bank, the trees that had fallen had been up rooted about twenty or so feet up the slope.  This meant that the large trunk of the tree was suspended above the trail and would mean we would have had to man handle the bikes over it, this was not going to be an option. This left only one other option and that was to try and ride up and across the left slope. The slope was steep but it initially looked as though we could possibly ride it. We decided to further investigate but as we walked up the bank we realised the moss was covering a very loose and unstable shale bank. We made a rough route along the bank through the bracken and around some hazel copses, but with a report now that there were more blockages along the way, we decided that we would leave this adventure for another day and better spend our time investigating the area, than tackling this one lane.

 

So beaten we turned around and headed back, the slate bridge saw our first off of the weekend, as Dave whilst walking his bike lost his footing. We continued back down the trail until we got to the road, then followed this until the next lane. This road was a beautiful single lane tarmac road cut into the rock, the drop off to our left was steep, but it gave us some amazing views of the mountains and valleys.

 

The next lane was a fast forest fire road that cut through forest and open countryside, as we made our way along we can across an area that looked as though the locals used it as a playground. Tracks ran into the forest, up and down steep banks and fording rivers and streams.

 

 

The lane after this was a UCR which was more or less an uncared for tarmaced lane.

The fourth lane we came to looked very interesting from the start. As I looked up the trail it started off as a mixture of gravel and shale with large rocks up to the size of footballs scattered along the way. But further up the trail there seemed to be a large area of what came only be described as a crazy pathed patio of flat broken slate. How long this lane would be or what it would throw at us I didn’t know, but I just knew it would be interesting. The lads had disappeared up the trail and around the corner before I had time to shut the gate. I made my way up the lane keeping momentum to get over the slate bed. I rounded the corner to see all three lads trying to get up a large curved lump of solid slate bedrock protruding into the lane; the slate was wet and slippery and was causing all types of problems. I sat and watch as they slipped, scrambled and slowly made their way over this lump of rock. Whilst watching I had decided the best route to take would be to keep to the far left of the track and to ride at a steady pace to keep traction with the surface.

 

Dave was now the only one left struggling with this obstacle, so I took the opportunity to attempt my route and hope that I didn’t end up crashing into Dave. My plan worked and once at a suitable place to stop, I parked up and went back to help Dave.

The track now was basically a river bed, the small stream that ran down next to the track had swollen and had over flowed and was now running down the track. The surface was solid slate with loose rocks scattered along its length. As we made our way up the mountain the surface changed again to a mixture of loose rocks and a rocky soil bed. As the track was cut into the surface water ran down its slopes and sat in puddles along its length. These puddles were a few inches deep and as the lane progressed the confidence built as did the speed, but near the top of the mountain one of these puddles caught out Colin and Dean. They had guessed that all the puddles were the same depth but this particular one was a lot deeper than the rest and soaked both of them.

 

We were now at the top of the mountain and we sat for a while taking in the view, but time was ticking on and we knew that we had to make a move, to make sure we got back before the darkness of night fell. We ascended down the other side of the mountain passing pine forests. We then hit the road for a little while to link us up with the next trail. This trail had a large deep valley gorge to the left of us. This gorge was bracken covered. Whilst to the right of the trail a deep green covering of gorse covered the mountain side. As we climb the mountain both the bracken and gorse gave way to grass land and sheep grazing. A little bit further on we came to a gate where we joined the last trail we had travelled. From now on we would be retracing our steps back to the hotel.  

 

 

Wales had been good to us this day; although windy and overcast we did have a little bit of broken sunshine at times and despite a small amount of occasional drizzle it had stayed dry. We were soon once again on the A5 heading back to the hotel, this threw up one last scary moment.  The A5 is lined by large Larch trees which at this time of year drop their needles. This in returned meant that the road was striped, needles, tyre track, needles, tyre track, needles this then repeated itself on the other side. I was travelling in the inner tyre track (the one nearest the curb) I decided to cross the needles to travel in the outer tyre track. This was nearly my undoing as I crossed over the loose needles slipped spinning up the back wheel and started the bike to drift, a missed heart beat or two later I once more was in control.