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This was once one of my favorite rides but alas no more. The path is now so overgrown with bracken as to be a real faff. Coupled with the numerous sections where the trail has slumped downslope towards the river, the fallen trees, the ticks and the increasing bogginess of some sections of the trail I'm not sure I'm going to visit it again despite it being so close to home.
I know that the bracken will die back but it has seriously invaded to trail in so many places. The fallen trees are too big to be dealt with without a chainsaw, the boggy sections need draining- I could carry (sometimes do) a small entrenching tool for this but it is the way that the trail has just dropped down in so many places and is now seriously disjointed.
It's a magical place but I think that I'll not cycle there again, just walk instead.
Probably not enough people riding or walking it to keep the bracken back. I've a bracken-infested descent near me that I try and ride at least once a week to keep open. This year I have, by constantly riding the edges of the trail to break and compress the bracken as it encroaches, but last year - I stopped riding it because the bracken was so dense you couldn't see the trail, let alone ride through it. The other thing to watch for are the sniper sheep, that shoot out in front of you, or as happened twice this year try and run through you, sending you through the air hoping for a soft landing!
That's a shame, I've enjoyed the Doethie valley ride a few times in the past. Not lately though, so perhaps I'm part of the problem. Seem to remember it being a bit boggy at the top end in places but generally OK lower down.
Maybe we should have a STW mass ride out one day in the spring. Anyone got a portable chainsaw?
It's got to be at least 15 years + since i've ridden that route and from memory it was pretty overgrown , indistinct and boggy even back then.
Just publish it in a Vertebrate Graphics guide book. It will be a muddy mess next time you ride it. Especially if it's billed as one of the top ten bits of singletrack in Wales.
Like others, not been for quite a long time. It was always fairly boggy and overgrown in sections, but maybe it's got worse? Will be staying nearby in late November and was considering riding it...might still give it a go, knowing it might be a slog, but maybe some of the bracken will have died back by then. Nice photos by the way!
PS Aren't most chainsaws portable?!
I’m finding this is increasingly an issue for ‘natural’ trails which are becoming unusable. I think it’s lack of traffic. MTBers are more winch and plummet these days at trail centres or off piste forests, while gravel bikers don’t venture on this sort of trail.
I rode it a couple of years back. Pure comedy riding when the bracken is in full bloom. Not the first time the evil stuff has attacked the crank and caused a crash. Well a slither off anyway.
Odd thing is that it is on the Cambrian way, which must be the most underused long distance footpath in the UK?
On a related (sort of) note, the trail which is most local to me (on Cavehill in Belfast) has become so overgrown that I hardly ride it any more. In this case, it is hidden brambles, which lurk unseen, and then rip your arms/legs to pieces if you ever do manage to avoid undergrowth long enough to pick up any speed.
so I wonder is it a common issue everywhere. Im annoyed about my local trail, because it almost leads directly to my back gate, and was my fav trail for many years. I did spend ages manually cutting back the worst offenders last spring. But I’m not sure I can summon up the energy levels required ot do so again, bearing in mind that it’s worse than I’ve ever seen it this summer/autumn.
PS Aren't most chainsaws portable?!
Fair point! I suppose they have to be, by definition. I probably meant "relatively lightweight, and leccy, not petrol driven" more than anything else.
I think the deterioration in rideability is due to a combination of factors. One is that it was a victim of its own success and was over ridden. Back in the 80s and 90s it was a great route. It stood up ok until it became popular due to an increase in riders in general and then promotion via magazines and the internet. Sometime a while ago it started to get badly cut up and it was no longer a ribbon of sublime singletrack so people stopped riding it so much.
At the top end the quad access to do the riparian fencing work cut up path and made things worse.
A reduction in grazing has resulted in bracken encroachment which makes it a pain to ride for much of the year.
I still ride it from time to time but more as a route south than a favourite ride.
Gowerboy, I agree with all you say, esp. re: grazing.
It was often mentioned as one of the top trails BITD but times have changed and people are seemingly after a different experience nowadays.
BTW are you called Hamish?
A group ride sounds good, maybe as a part of a proper 'Old School' mid Wales get together. Bothy Ahoy!