Hitting ‘The Wall’

Published on October 8, 2007

I got back from Afan last night. It was pretty much what I expected; lots of climbing with some rewarding single track descents. I can’t say I enjoyed the climbing, and now realise that the gap between a freeride bike that pedals well and a XC bike is bigger than I originally thought. That said we did get round ‘The Wall’ trail in two hours and ten minutes, passing several groups of riders on XC bikes.

We stopped to talk to a couple on the trails (during one of the many breathers I had to take) and the woman made a comment about us riding ‘tractors’. Always one to take criticism on the chin, realising she was right, and that our bikes were indeed overkill for the trails, we carried on. Later on we passed the same couple, and they offered us to go first down the trail. My comment; ‘You don’t want to be stuck behind a couple of tractors do you?’. We didn’t see them again; that’ll learn em.

The ups were hard and the downs were very good, especially the final descent. Its the closest I’ve come to riding Alpine trails, along with Cwmcarn, but Cwmcarn has a very nice uplift service to take you to the top after each run.