Distance: n/a
Climb: n/a
Grade: 1/3 & 2/3 (Red/Black)
Rating: 4/5
Climb: n/a
Grade: 1/3 & 2/3 (Red/Black)
Rating: 4/5
Afan Forest is widely known as one of the Gem's of welsh mountain biking and with the new Bike Park, designed and implemented by Cognation, it has s a very good addition to what the area already has to offer.
The new bike park is located at the top of Y Wal near to the Brynn Betws Lodge and sits adjacent to the new singletrack extension to the trail itself. There are several short routes of varying degrees of difficulty comprising big berms, jumps, drops and swooping trail, plus a couple of skinny log sections and a rocky loop that'll test your balance and poise.
Of the 7 routes available 4 are graded 1/3 and three are graded 2/3. The higher graded lines are the skinny log line, a series of large doubles and the big line. The jumps along this section, in particular, get pretty large.
Despite the scale of quite a lot of the jumps and berms here, they are all pretty much rideable for those wishing to keep both wheels on the ground. Naturally, however, the faster you go the more fun it is and at speed each trail starts to make a lot more sense. The jumps become technically more challenging as you have to commit to a bigger or longer jump, making line choice more critical but more interesting. The berms do a great job for speed retention making the jumps significantly easier.
Despite the scale of quite a lot of the jumps and berms here, they are all pretty much rideable for those wishing to keep both wheels on the ground. Naturally, however, the faster you go the more fun it is and at speed each trail starts to make a lot more sense. The jumps become technically more challenging as you have to commit to a bigger or longer jump, making line choice more critical but more interesting. The berms do a great job for speed retention making the jumps significantly easier.
I wasn't initially comfortable with the type of surfacing used. However, after a few runs, a more drift happy approach to riding was adopted which saw me picking up more speed with each attempt, committing a lot of speed to the berms off the back of each series of jumps. There is grip in there, if you're willing to look for it.
Although each individual line is relatively short, it does mean that a day's fun can be had without the need for an uplift truck. The venue is easily push-up-able for repeated attempts - just don't get complacent - and once you've had enough of the park there's the final descent of Y Wal to look forward to. What's not to like.
I was quite impressed with the Afan Bike Park and will most certainly be stopping off each time I visit Y Wal from now on. I do think it is a bit small on it's own but when combined with the trail itself I think it makes more sense and invigorates one of the original trails.