MTB Nant-yr-Arian
Saturday was a miserable day here, grey and damp so we had a family outing to the supermarket and a naughty lunch at MacDonalds!
By about 5pm the weather in Borth looked to have cleared a little. It was still grey, still a little damp but at least the rain had stopped, so as I was itching to get out on my bike, Anna gave me a few hours to go out and play and i loaded up the car and headed off to the hills. By the time I got to bow street the hills looked as though they were shrouded in cloud, by Penrhyncoch my windscreen wipers came on and by the time I got halfway up the hill to Pendam it was lashing down… Still, I was here ow so I wasn’t going to let a lot of rain stop me.
Usually when you get to Pendam you see a few other cyclists out, but not today, there was no one around and it felt a little wild and lonely up there… perfect for my first outing on a bike in over 10 years as no one would see me puffing and panting up the hills and nervously negotiating the downhill sections.
I had decided to do the northern loop of the Syfydrin Trail, so set off along the road towards Llyn Syfydrin and followed the trail markers from there. The first section was easy, not too much in the way of undulations, fairly wide tracks and nothing too technical, just lots and lots of deep puddles. It then takes you out onto the road around Nant-Y-Moch before heading back off onto the tracks. I don’t have a cycling computer (yet), so had my GPSr strapped to the handlebars, it shows me distance covered, current speed, max speed and average speed so it is more than sufficient and it will allow me to do some geocaching in the process. Hwevr I didn’t know how long the te was going to be so it didn’t really help with working out how much further I had to go, but it did show me that I hadn’t actually covered much ground yet.
From here the going got a little tougher, steeper climbs and some more technical, rocky downhill sections. Nothing too extreme but I was a little cautious seeing as it was my first time out for years, my first time on this bike, my first time on a bike with suspension forks and I was on my own with no one else out in the hills. I don’t remember ever thinking about the consequences of falling off before, but I guess your view of such things changes as you age!
The trail then takes you out across the open Welsh countryside with some great views even through the mist and murk and then plunges down to Bont Goch. Unfortunately there are quite a few gates that need to be opened and subsequently closed behind you which tends to disrupt the flow of your cycle, but it does provide an opportunity for a brief rest an a couple of seconds out of the saddle. From here it is a long slog back up towards the lakes. Again it wasn’t too difficult but I don’t remember having to use the small chain-ring anywhere near as much as I did today.
I made it back to the car in one piece and overall was quite pleased. Ok I wasn’t fast and I wasn’t as confident on the bike over the rough stuff as I used to be, but I had fun, I got my heart and lungs working harder than they had in quite a while and I was raring to get out and do some more. I can’t wait to get out and explore some more of the trails on offer around here.
