This is a nice scenic mountain bike loop from the coast at Ynyslas up into the hills around Angler’s Retreat. A fair bit of it is on the road, but there are plenty of scenic views and enough off-road miles to keep the Mountain-Biker happy.
From Ynyslas, the route goes along the flats to Tre-Ddol and then up a brutal road climb behind the church. It really is a killer and not the nicest way to start the ride proper, but you’ll have a sense of satisfaction at the top. At the end of the road turn left and go through a gate and then along a narrow road through some nice farmland. As the road bears sharply to the left head right onto a rocky little track, through another gate and up through a rock cutting to some amazing views out across the Dyfi Valley and towards the estuary at Ynyslas where you started the ride. There is also a tricky little geocache here (Assume Nothing Wales #1) if you fancy giving that a go.
Continue along the track, through a gate and then left at the end onto a long fire road climb which opens up to provide some great views across Artists Valley. The climb does drag on a bit so you may want to stop to refuel and admire the views halfway up. At the top the fire road comes to a ‘T’ junction and immediately opposite is a muddy MX Track, follow this, around the bend and then down hill on the right hand track, at the bottom of the hill is a sharp left-hander into a tricky little rocky step that is rideable, but isn’t that easy. the trail then drops down along a nice bit of double track with some little drops and dips and spits you out at out some disused mines.
Go right here then left and then right up ery short climb through a gulley and then out onto a fire-road descent which changes into a nice double track descent and then a rocky descent before going through a ford and then up onto the Nant y Moch road. Here you can take the road or the little tracks up to the right of the road before joining up with the Continental Trail for a while. here you go up a little climb, through a gate and then over the morrland on some nice double track (which is usually quite wet). There is a nice little rocky descent and then you keep following the Continental Trail up to its high point where we leave it and bear left along a bridleway for a descent down into Elerch.
here we join the road again and drop down into Talybont (there are some more interesting little excursions through the woods to the right here if you wish) and then along the main road and back to Tre-Ddol before the long straight back to Ynyslas.
Around 30 miles in total and on a nice day you’ll have plenty to keep you interested.
Click here for a Google Earth file of the route. Just download it and open it in Google Earth.
An overview and topo section is shown below.
Route map and Topo section
The weather yesterday was perfect for mountain-biking, gorgeous sunshine very little wind and cool, so Harvey and I headed off to Pendam for a ride and some exploring.
From Pendam car park we cycled out past Llyn Syfydrin and along the track towards Nant-y-Moch. We saw Dave on the way so said our hello’s and then headed out along the road besides Nant-y-Moch and all the way to the top of the mountain road. We then followed the forest track to Anglers Retreat with a small diversion down a rocky, muddy trail and through a little bog. We stopped at Angler’s Retreat to check on one of my geocaches and then continued on past Llyn Penrhaeadr.
I have another geocache hidden on the shores of Llyn Penrhaeder so we decided to stop and check on this one as well. There are no obvious landmarks near this one, so I wasn’t 100% sure where it was, but then I remembered that I had loaded the nearest 100 caches to home into my Forerunner 305 the other day, so a quick press of a few buttons and my GPS watch was telling me that the nearest gecoache was 150 feet from where we had stopped…. Needless to say we soon found it and all was in good order. I know everyone has been loading geocache details directly from their computer into their GPS devices for a while now, but I didn’t have a cable for my old eTrex GPS so this is new to me. I had always had to enter them by hand, so being able to automatically add 100 caches to the device is great. It saves so much time and means I have all the caches I need to hand.
From here we headed off to the forestry and made a little detour to Pistyll y Llyn. Harvey had never approached from this direction before or seen the view from the top, so he was suitably impressed. It is an amazing place and the location of yet another of my Watery Wales 2 geocaches. If you only do one of them, then this is the one to do just for the views.
After retrieving our bikes we climbed to the highest point of the route before an undulating descent through some eroded gulleys that were good fun. Unfortunately the bottom part of the track was a little wet so we had to dismount a few times to negotiate some big puddles but overall it was a good technical little trail. From here we headed back along forest tracks towards Nant-y-Moch and then finished off the route with a bit of the Continental Trail and then back to Pendam.
20 miles in total and a nice easy pace with stops for the geocaches made for a good afternoon out. The image to the left shows the stats of our ride and here is a kml file of the route that Google Earth should be able to open.
Anglers Retreat Cycle Route (.kml file for Google Earth)
I’ve had another action packed weekend here in Mid Wales. Enjoying the best that the area has to offer, all thanks to Anna who of course had Morgan to contend with on Saturday whilst I enjoyed myself.
Steve arived at around 9am and we headed off to Pendam for a mountain bike ride out to Angler’s Retreat and back. I had done this route a couple of times at night whilst following others from the Ystwyth Cycling Club, but hadn’t done it in the daylight or found the route on my own.
The route finding was fine and if anything it was easier at night, but the route itself was good with a good variety of surfaces and technical difficulty and not too much sustained climbing. It was pretty cold and wet up there and the wind was picking up so we only did the one route of about 14 miles so that we could head back down to the beach for a windsurf session. Steve managed to fall off a couple of time and I managed to find one really deep (probably about waist deep) puddle that I cycled through. Steve saw me disappear into it and thought better of trying to ride through it himself. needless to say I got pretty wet.
Back at sea-level and there was enough wind for a decent windsurf session at Ynyslas. I tried out my new wheel-barrow as my previous one has rusted away and met Steve, Impi and a guy from the south coast over there. We had a good session in what is now beginning to feel like winter conditions.
This part of Wales really does have a lot to offer for those who like the outdoor lifestyle and a bit of adventure.
Anna and Morgan meanwhile had been busy sorting out Morgans toys and cooking soup.
