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Weather looks lovely for Saturday so will be going to Afan to do Blade. It's the last of Afan's trails I've yet to do. Looking at the trail map there seems to be some options for the descents. I know one of them is the old skyline descent and then there's the new one, but I'm just looking for some suggestions as to which ones are the best?
So there's Peregrine Ridge and The Rock, which then lead into either Jetlag or Happy Life. Any fans of Blade have some input on which ones are the better ones?
Old Skyline descent is the easier of the two, but they're both actually pretty technical by the standards of the trail and indeed the rest of Afan, they're noticeably trickier than the Black Run on Whites for example, although not the standard of the optional Blacks on Wall (which are unsurfaced Endruo race lines really).
Skyline as above is the easier, it's narrow and rocky with a few drops, most of them have a blind slope on the back so you can roll them, some don't, if you want to ride at pace and not 'look before you leap' you'll need to be able to ride say 2ft drops blind, far from impossible of course, but they're one of the only blind, unrollable drops anywhere in Afan. In fairness a lot of the difficulty of that route used to be that it was at the end of a 45k trail and you'd be knackered.
Blade descent is very steep in short sections, can be loose (but not this time of year) you'll need to be able to ride rollers into steep sections to ride it well, and again there are drops, it rides best if you can keep a flowy pace, it's harder to ride slow because the trail expects you to carry momentum over rocks etc and not just on the steep bits.
They're both really good fun, but a bit out of character compared to the rest of Afan, as is Blade as a whole, some bits are very 'man made', some are very lose, rutted, cut up, loose, muddy, rocky etc, not like a traditional TC.
**to add, when you get towards the end of Blade, the original descent is straight on, the new Blade descent goes left and slightly steeper downhill.
That's really great info, thanks for that! Honestly it sounds like a lot of fun, I'll probably try the more technical descents then, I feel like I'm ready for a challenge!