Today has officially been the best riding day of the year. After a few days of easy spinning to get the weekends efforts out the legs I was ready for a bit of off road action.
Tuesday evening was spent building up my race bike, in preparation for the weekend’s race. So today I decided to drive to Cwm carn and put in a couple of laps to test the bike out and check everything was in order.
Tuesday evening was spent building up my race bike, in preparation for the weekend’s race. So today I decided to drive to Cwm carn and put in a couple of laps to test the bike out and check everything was in order.
As I left Cardiff around 10 it was slightly overcast but still fairly mild. As always it was a bit chilly in the car park so I opted for arm warmers and knee warmers and set of up the first climb. I decided to extend the loop in order to get in a bit more climbing so I continued straight on up the fire road rather than turning right after the river traverse section of trail. This adds 3 or 4 miles to the loop and takes in the moors on the top of the mountain before rejoining the trail at the free ride section.
As I climbed the long fire road climb it began to heat up so I decided to remove my arm and knee warmers, the first time this year! As I climbed higher the cloud thinned out and the sunshine beamed down. Some of the views were pretty amazing as the haze hid the valley floor giving the impression that the hills were bigger than they actually were. It reminded me of the Rocky Mountains in Canada. (Unfortunaly the camera on my phone isn’t brilliant)
It was great to be back ripping it up on the IronHorse after bashing around on a heavy hard tail all winter, it really does like to be hammered down Cwm carn’s flowing rocky trails, although I think I like it more!
The first loop took a little over 1h and I was feeling good so I decided to ride the extended loop again. Cwm carn is so much fun in the dry and really invites you to push the grip on you tyres to the limit. The top section which runs parallel to the free ride track is defiantly my favourite; I certainly got my adrenaline fix there today! I arrived back in one piece a little over 2hours. The bike is riding as brilliantly as ever and the tan lines are beginning to form!
Now for some easy rides so I’m fresh for the BUCS champs at the weekend, hopefully the sun will be shining then as well :)
Also good luck to my team mate Dave who will be riding the Welsh coast to coast off road over the weekend.
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