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Sliding
in to insanity
At last you reach a wooden gate and cross on to a grassy singletrack, this zips you the three hundred yards across the flat plateau to the top of one of the most incredible descents in the UK. This is twelve hundred feet pretty much straight down on rabbit-clipped grass single track. There's a real 'going over the edge' feeling to this one with the shining slate of Craig Rhiwarth filling your view ahead, the sensation of height and scale takes your breath away. A couple of well placed bumps let you fly off down the trail and then you're sliding in to the first bend. This is really smooth natural single track, in the dry it's deep joy sliding round the corners way too fast for comfort. In the wet you'd need a sanity check at the top and clean shorts at the bottom.
Roasted
rotors
The middle section has two long straights and one 'slightly' bermed corner, after the corner a short solid rock section leads in to a narrow cliffside and then points you right at a handy square boulder. Best lose a little speed here as it would be pretty embarrassing to hit the only rock on the trail. The final section before the gate is the steepest and anyone with an XC set up bike (like us) will have fun staying on as the last two hundred yards requires some serious off the back braking. Once through the gate a smooth, grassy doubletrack takes you down to a further gate and stream crossing on the right. Through one more gate on the other side and then skirt right again across the foot of Craig Rhiwarth.
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Perfect end
This last section of the downhill is another peach, beginning on grass and at speed it launches you in to a small copse with slate outcrops narrowing the trail. At the far edge of the copse a sprung gate leads you out on to the loose slate piled up against the foot of the craggy mountainside. This section of the trail is narrow and technical, with a fair old drop to the left and slate jutting out at odd angles, it's amazing horses manage it safely. All too soon you're on a narrow tarmac road at the back of Llangynog, only two hundred yards from the car park. It's almost worth riding (and pushing...) back up to do it again, we
did once, it hurts.
Llangynog is easy
to get to, tough to ride and rewards you in spades. It has fantastic
scenery, big and fast descents, technical riding and a good car
park. Get on your bike!
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