[Closed] Empty Welsh Trail Centres

I'd guess uplift is the bulk problem here. Up in Shropshire here and Eastridge was thriving, now not so much.

Different bpw grab the vast majority of the funding now, which is a real shame, meaning there's much less for upkeep and new trails elsewhere.

Locally the trails here seen to have transformed from single-track rocky and rooty fun to wide bermy monsters where it seems everyone is trying to out Strava each other and do straight lines missing the while bloody point of a trail 😔

Just the changing face of mountain biking I guess, mooooooar travel, heavier bikes, e bikes.

I don't get to the southern Welsh trail centres much, but I'd imagine BPW sucks a huge amount of their traffic up. When I go to any in the North, it often seems I'm just being overtaken by groups on E-bikes.

I'd guess uplift is the bulk problem here. Up in Shropshire here and Eastridge was thriving, now not so much.

Different bpw grab the vast majority of the funding now, which is a real shame, meaning there's much less for upkeep and new trails elsewhere.

Locally the trails here seen to have transformed from single-track rocky and rooty fun to wide bermy monsters where it seems everyone is trying to out Strava each other and do straight lines missing the while bloody point of a trail 😔

Just the changing face of mountain biking I guess, mooooooar travel, heavier bikes, e bikes.

YUp, BPW is the main answer.

It's full EVERY day...

Last week... maybe 10 people at AFan on Wed.... 150 at BPW on Thurs... that's the simple answer

Forest of Dean seems busier than ever too. They've done a lot of work on new trails. I guess most people have to drive quite a bit further to get to Afan.

I think there's also a HUGE amount of off-piste stuff across South Wales, which has only got grown in both number of trails and popularity since 2020. If you look at Cwmcarn, they've introduced the offpiste stuff to the trails and (according to strava) some of them get ridden more than the main track.

With Afan in particular, the issue is always trail diversions due to logging - I can't remember the last time I went there and was able to do a full trail of anything other than Y Wal without going on some fireroad diversion.

Are you ignoring the cost of everything has increased (over the last 18 months not just recently) - fuel costs are up which means fewer people are going places, once there the costs for staying are also up.

Forest of Dean is mentally busy these past couple of years, especially on weekends. I think it's unique mix of family, uplift and enduro makes it incredibly popular, not to mention the easy transport links.

I haven't been to BPW in donkeys years, but it does make everything else hurt for sure, just being privately owned means the trails are just that much better.

There definitely is a general change to MTB that I don't necessarily agree with, the whole Strava, and ebikes makes it seem a lot more hostile and aggressive than it perhaps should.

Maybe COVID made people think twice about driving miles just to ride a bike ?

Certainly it astounded me how far people were prepared to travel pre lock down (the COVID thread about not travelling far to ride)

I think Wales is much quieter than usual at the minute. I was in some places last week (non biking) that I was expecting to be rammed and they were relatively empty

Don't disagree with the BPW diagnosis, but interesting that popularity of the Marin trail hasn't gone down since Antur opened. Perhaps context plays a role, i.e. stuff to do/buy/eat after riding.

A combination of, lots of amazing off piste stuff in s. Wales- that's improving all the time, rising fuel prices and BPW sucking up business

I’ve literally just booked a stay in Afan lodge for me and Junior, 13, in July.

Wondering whether to take my clockwork evo and rent him a full suss to even things up, he’s never done it before.

With that, its £200 b&b, £75 in fuel, and might be £130 in bike hire. I know there are ways to bring that cost down but this is a small holiday for us both so I’d quite like the ease of the a lodge. And, we haven’t added Teenager levels of Food yet…

Are you ignoring the cost of everything has increased (over the last 18 months not just recently) – fuel costs are up which means fewer people are going places, once there the costs for staying are also up.

Definitely a factor - chatting to a shop keeper in Bakewell the other day and business over Easter has been busy, but nowhere near as busy as their usual pre-Covid Easters.

I can see a lot of people having to reduce the number of times they burn 50 quid in fuel to travel to a trail centre, or the coast, or a favourite walking destination.

Wondering whether to take my clockwork evo and rent him a full suss to even things up, he’s never done it before

IT's still rocky, rooty and bumpy... I love the place as it's very different to anywhere else my lad rides, it reminds me of older days when younger and fitter. We played there last week on Wed and really enjoyed it.

Thanks Weeksy, I’d rather not take my Carbon race FS - I know it’ll probably be ok but I can’t justify a replacement if the frame takes a hit, and he’ll be much slower than me so I won’t be blasting the trails as much.

I think everyone's pretty spot on, it's a combination of people discovering bigger and better trails, plus the insane travel costs meaning people can't just drive 2hrs on a whim.

Cwmcarn car park is rammed every weekend Tbf - don’t see that is less popular. Although as well as the 2 red loops and 1 blue loop they have the DH track and uplift + loads of off piste (sone of which is now official). I’ve been to Afan 2 or 3 times pre Covid and it’s always been pretty dead. We stayed at that lodge at the top of Afan once and that was dead too. I’ve always been underwhelmed by that trail centre though.

they burn 50 quid in fuel

Ho, ho, ho. £70 for diesel nowadays I would expect given the 5 litres of petrol I bought for the mower cost just under £8 yesterday (supermarket fuel not jungle juice from Shell). If I drive the budget is around £175 for fuel in the Saab!

Going away is a rare treat currently. Staying local and doing my bit for climate change.

Is it just me, or are more people steering away from XC these days? Everyone just wants to go down faster and more often. Afan isn't like that, it's a lot of big loops that take in great scenery. Even the easier runs at Afan are 15km(ish) with some tricky climbs - I honestly think the center itself is just a completely different type of riding to what most people want these days.

FoD is packed because it's super easy to get to the top of the hill and back down again loads of times in a day. BPW is the same although prices are starting to squeeze a lot of "locals" out. Cwmcarn is still busy but Cafall and Twrch are now ridden by at least 90% ebikes.

I live a fair distance from any trail centre but used to visit Seven Stanes regularly and stay over 3-4 days. Combination of COVID and cost of everything hikes has meant I haven't done this for a couple of years and I imagine plenty of others feel the same

Yeah for me time and cost are a big factor. Living in Manchester BPW (or south Wales in general) is a huge schlep that just sucks up money. I can get to Revolution in under 2 hours though, and for a weekend I can book a day at Antur Stiniog and then do CyB or "whatever the Marin Trail is called now" on the other day.

South Wales isn't as attractive for me

Apparently BPW can have 500 people visit on a weekend per day now they've split the morning / afternoon....

Having recently been to cwmcarn last year and Afan at the start of this year (after not visiting either for 10 yrs) I can safely say I'll leave it another 10 at least before visiting again. BPW I'll prob go to 6 times this year.

interesting that popularity of the Marin trail hasn’t gone down since Antur opened.

And more people are cottoning on to it having some of the best off-piste in the land, so it attracts some of the same crowd as Antur anyway.

I really don't think trail centres are "empty" anyway, Afan was absolutely rammed when I visited last year, but even if some are quiet - I'd say the existence of BPW is a minor factor in that.

- Increased popularity and knowledge of "natural" trails and mountains
- Massive increase in hand-cut off-piste trails, often more local (as mentioned, S Wales has tons)
- Everyone seems to go to the Tweed Valley all the time

I thought ebikes might make the trail centers busier, but I think the reality is with an ebike, you don't need a slow interesting single-track climb anymore, better to have a quick fireroad blast to the top and do more downhill runs. We used to ride Afan and similar quite regularly, but now prefer the many FoD options and it's closer.

Having recently been to cwmcarn last year and Afan at the start of this year (after not visiting either for 10 yrs) I can safely say I’ll leave it another 10 at least before visiting again.

Could you expand upon why please?

I've got to say, last time i went to Afan (and the Ponds) it was a bit dull. What used to be quite exciting on older geo bikes is a bit tame on an enduro sled...

I don't beleive people are travelling as much. Simples. Either that or they are all off to Benidorm again. We have just had a lovely dry sunny Easter Bank holiday when in any pre Covid year all the local campsites would have been rammed, and they were basically 3/4 empty. I just think the uncertainty with the future combined with price rises wqe have already seen, are making people think twice about travelling.
But I also think the amount of off-piste loveliness in S Wales has had a major bearing on tra\il centre use too.

As Radbikebro says, says I think there is a general decline in xc or general trail type riding. A lot of people are on bigger, slacker and heavier bikes. I joined an MTB club over a year ago and the younger riders seem to be way more focused on sessioning off piste singletrack, jumps and uplift type stuff. So more up and down than across.

I’ve never been that excited by Afan tbh. Prefer the trails at Cwmcarn and Brechfa. But we’re visiting Afan this summer coming for the first time in a few years - the plan is to visit the off piste at the masts though and see how that goes in the morning. I’d we find it tough then we’ll probably do a trail centre loop in the afternoon.

On Cwmcarn there is a high % of e-bikes now - see more of those than real bikes. I went to the FOD yesterday for an explore around Staunton - I’d say it was 50/50 ebikes to real bikes.

We spent Easter at FOD and Afan and it was chalk and cheese. FOD was rammed Afan empty. We stayed on the campsite at the Afan trail head and from our perspective the following were the issues.

The trails are the trails and it feels like nothing has been updated since Blade was openned. (Sorry trail fairies) One of the better descents from the top by the wind turbines appears to be permanently closed. The shop was shut Sunday and Monday. The showers were cold and no one bothered to replace the toilet roll when it ran out. It all felt very run down. The owner said the campsite was full but it didn’t look even close to fun to us.

Im not sure we will bother going back for a while. It’s 4 hours away which opens up lots of other options for us

Depending on where you live, it can be a tough one.

I havent been to Afan for a few years, but always enjoy the place, i just know what its like. i dont go there expecting a BPW setup.

But having said that, coming from the south coast, we have to drive past (or go very close to) FoD, Staunton, Cwmcarn, Barry Sidings, BPW to name but a few, so there are plenty of more appealing options along the way.

the local campsites would have been rammed, and they were basically 3/4 empty

I think lots of folks took the opportunity to fly away for a holiday. Manchester airpit was rammed.

On Cwmcarn there is a high % of e-bikes now – see more of those than real bikes

Seems like that at Llandegla as well. - more so than at other trails

Ebikes are a big factor. They're creating splits within riding groups that discourage away days to trail centres, and encourage trips to places like BPW/FOD, as you can all session your various bikes, and just meet at intervals, whereas you used to go and ride all together round a lap of something like Afan, which just isn't great as a mix.

Add to that the cost of eBikes, both up front and ongoing, and it's robbing people of their old travel budgets. Clearly thats not true for everyone, but we've opened a couple of trailhead shops recently and the number one thing to sell is tyres to eBike riders, usually fitted to bikes which are otherwise stock, and generally pretty hanging. It's really notable that the spend on parts/fancy stuff is almost always on the non eBikes and eBikes are just getting trashed by comparison.

Seems to me your average bike rider coming out of Covid is an eBike owner thats grinding it into the ground on a budget nowadays. I guess that maybe applies to travel too, the self uplifted days away to FOD/BPW are relatively good value if you're not paying to sit in the bus, and if you can do it without accommodation it's actually keeping the cost down relative to the old trips away.

– Everyone seems to go to the Tweed Valley all the time

Have to agree with that. From what I can see people are travelling just as much as ever, but possibly to different places. Where I am in the east of the Borders it has been insanely busy with tourists / visitors this month. Honestly, the numbers are closer to what I would usually expect for a busy June and local bsinesses have all head there best ever takings for this time of year. I spent a few days in the Loch Rannoch hotel in the run up to easter weekend and that was also 100% fully booked the entire week.
Off piste riding has also massively taken off up here during covid. Any evenly slightly nice day sees the Tweed Valley pretty much rammed. On weekends it is now common for there to be queues to start the 'must do' golfie trails. Storm Arwen related closures have certainly added to that but it is generally noticeably busier now. Same for Penmanshiel woods. Trails only built during the first lockdown and now very much a destination for Berwickshire, East Lothian, Edinburgh riders.

I've not been to Afan since pre-covid despite living reasonably close. The main reason being lack of time but secondly hearing from various places that the trails arent maintained much and are overgrown. I guess those sorts of comments spread easily and sway people to other locations

For those passing through S. Wales, from social media, there seems to be an active trail building/maintenance group going at Margam, right by the motorway. I tihnk it is largely family/xc trails but could be worth a stop (its 2 minutes of the M4), I guess building on the 'World Cup' XC cource that get built and never used.

BPW is the only centre to regularly update it's trails.
Afan etc are too 'xc/trail' based and dated (built 20 years ago?) with focus on loops rather than descending which if you look at what bikes look like now, you'll see what the trends are. So it mostly comes down to funding and ability to provide something new to appeal to visitors.
Personally I have no interest in going to Afan etc to do a loop. much more fun riding elsewhere. I used to enjoy brechfa as it was a nice part of the world, but there's better riding closer to home.

You also have a lot of less official riding spots that can be pretty busy. There's only so many people!

The centres at afan helped to bring a lot of people and income to a place that it was needed. Hopefully they can be busy again but the governments need to keep investing in new trails to bring people in. The valley has a lot of potential!

Slightly off topic but kind of related.

We were away over Easter for the first time in years, my Wife has a few caravan parks on Facebook she follows, all of them had last minute availability and still weren’t full. We took our pick and took advantage of a relatively low cost short break.

I think people are either flying abroad or are being extra cautious with they’re available spending money. I think the holiday places this summer won’t be full, people will either be prepared to lose their deposits and go abroad or lose they’re holiday full stop.

Although when I look at the car park at FOD there appears to be a very big pot of money spent on bikes, specifically eMTB. It seems every man and his trail dog has one. That’s a lot of money to save on uplifts!

South Wales is home for me and I'm at the TCs most weekends.

TBH, Cwmcarn is busy most weekends, sometimes it's not - for whatever reason the planets are out of alignment and it's quiet (well half-full), but mostly very busy. Afan is genrally pretty busy too, especially if the weather is nice. Glyncorrwg down the road though, not so much.

Yeah, everything chanaged when BPW opened, but that was 9 years ago. If I had to say what the major changes have been in the last few years, it's more choice - as a lot of people said, 'off-piste' riding has become more accepted by the powers that be in recent years and a lot of the previous 'shady spots' are becoming more offical, Risca Bike Park, the unoffical, offical name for the unoffical bits of Cwmcarn gets more riders than Cwmcarn. At Afan most people have worked out there are free car parks that service the trails (tight sods) and there's not lots of tollerated trails in Cardiff for the first time every, Cardiff being about 5x more population dense than anywhere else in Wales.

Trail wise there has been a huge evolution, with every offical trail in South Wales being effected to a degree by harvesting, the old tight twisty single track trails are largely gone, replaced by wider, more bike park like trails. They suit me, others less so.

I’ve not been to Afan since pre-covid despite living reasonably close. The main reason being lack of time but secondly hearing from various places that the trails arent maintained much and are overgrown. I guess those sorts of comments spread easily and sway people to other locations

For those passing through S. Wales, from social media, there seems to be an active trail building/maintenance group going at Margam, right by the motorway. I tihnk it is largely family/xc trails but could be worth a stop (its 2 minutes of the M4), I guess building on the ‘World Cup’ XC cource that get built and never used.

Most, if not all the trail crews were off a lot of the 2 years of the Pandemic, and yeah the trails started to return to nature, but that's not the case anymore, they're free and easy to pass and lots of work seems to be going into puddle clearning.

Margam... I've been twice, they're working hard on it, but it's not going to compete with the other places, it's still an XC race venue, the climbs are pretty technical, the descents aren't really, yeah in some places, but mostly it's a hard climb up, some epic views and herds of Deer to see and very short loops.

Afan is a bit odd, it almost seems you have to know it in advance to know what is coming. When you do, the reds and blacks (w2 and blade) are easily comparable to the non-jumpy BPW easier reds and harder blues. But you have this "is it a climb, is it a descent?" limbo as you turn it to some sections.
Apart from the hilariously retro "drop your saddle" signs in places.

I do laugh at the "lack of maintainance" complaints - with the exception of overgrown bushes which were a bit of a pain last summer.
Half the people are on enduro rigs moaning about rough trails, the other half a saying a hardtail is overkill and its just easy xc riding. I guess peoples expectations have changed.

There is a week-old thread about Glentress being quiet too. Maybe everyone is off gravelbiking.

A combination of, lots of amazing off piste stuff in s. Wales- that’s improving all the time, rising fuel prices and BPW sucking up business

I think the off piste point is here is a good one, I'll park at Cwmcarn and do an enduro loop heading to wyllie and back to the car park for lunch and then the RBP stuff, will see a good amount of people riding this stuff, but I wont touch the trail centre stuff there.

It's a combination of fuel costs and the E-bike issue from what people have said to me in the trails. If one or two of a group go the assisted route they want to do completely different riding to everyone else so the group fragments, meaning bug trips away are harder to organise and less frequent.

TBH, Cwmcarn is busy most weekends, sometimes it’s not – for whatever reason the planets are out of alignment and it’s quiet (well half-full), but mostly very busy. Afan is genrally pretty busy too, especially if the weather is nice. Glyncorrwg down the road though, not so much.

I see the same. Cwmcarn can be rammed or quiet for no particular reason and Glyncorrwg has completely fallen off people's radar, they get to Afan and that's it.

The BPW issue is real though. It just sucks evryone in and is one of the reasons I have gone off the place. The effect it had when it first opened was surreal, everywhere suddenly was empty, and that has not really declined. When it was still quite small everyone would do a day there and another somewhere close to make a weekend of it but they now have so many trails in BPW that you can just go there for a weekend and not get bored. That's effecting traffic to the other places.

I tend to only do trail centres 2-3 times a year - we usually fit it into a 'cheap' weekend at my caravan with the lads. The travel costs do add up, and as a 'roadie' at heart I feel it's daft driving 100 miles or more to ride 20.

I'm getting the miles in commuting and on the road bike. I've not touched the Full Sus since October !!! I'm lucky the Peaks offer enough natural stuff by riding from home, but the road bike has been beckoning, as it involves no car travel.

Have they ever been that busy though? Since the nineties a group of us have fairly regularly stayed somewhere for a week most years and ridden trail centres and other stuff. None of them have ever been busy.
The exceptions being BPW and, if I'm passing Cannock Chase.

I travel for work a lot and often get a sneaky ride in at a trail centre, again never that busy.
The weekends may be different but I tend to stay local at the weekends unless it's a race/event.
Obviously as mentioned fuel costs will have a big impact plus working longer hours to make ends meet for some

Have they ever been that busy though? Since the nineties a group of us have fairly regularly stayed somewhere for a week most years and ridden trail centres and other stuff. None of them have ever been busy.
The exceptions being BPW and, if I’m passing Cannock Chase.

thats a good point, something a place with a few or even a single "big loop" is going to have. Even with vastly different riding speeds, and now with ebikes changing that even further, you arent going to really meet that many people on your ride. If they set off 20 minutes ahead of you on a 2 hour loop, thats quite a differnece in ability for you to catch them up.

Last year I went to Afan in the spring, probably about the first weekend that Wales let us in after lock down. Barely got a parking spot arriving at 10ish. Hardly saw anyone on the trails though.

Contrast to anything with a series of very short loops that all return to the same spot (like the B1ke places, Chicksands etc) and you will see absolutely everyone there, multiple times.
Uplift places are even worse, even small ones with only one bus running, because you will all end up at the same spot at the bottom, within a few minutes of each other, multiple times an hour.

Maybe they need to rebrand as extreme gravel.

Ebikes make it seem busier, when I was at FoD earlier in the year I swear I got passed by the same guy three times while I was climbing up the main fireroad.

Interesting you mention Glyncorrwg being the empty one, from what I've seen myself, the Afan Visitor Centre (Bottom of Y Wal) is nearly empty since the bike shop and cafe shut.

But again, the BPW effect really hurts everyone, and again off piste really seems to drag everyone in. Same with North Wales tbh, I went to Coed-y-Brenin in the winter, and it was completely empty.

Interesting you mention Glyncorrwg being the empty one, from what I’ve seen myself, the Afan Visitor Centre (Bottom of Y Wal) is nearly empty since the bike shop and cafe shut

Was chatting to a bloke working there the other day, apparently there's people willing to move in, but the council seem to be dragging their heels... I wasn't even aware it'd closed as we'd not been since about Oct. Shame it has though as it was excellent.

From what I can see, the bike shop is moving in soon to their new place, but without a cafe, it's gonna be hard to drag people out of BPW.

Yeah it's been shut for a good while I think, certainly not helping the situation. I can't think why the council is being resistant?

Probably a hot take, but bikes have outgrown trail centres.

I mean that in the sense that any modern 140 mm+ bike feels sluggish on the typically mellow trail centre descents. The local's tracks in Cwmcarn/FoD are much more busy than the trail centres. Can also blame strava for making off-piste easier to find.

I mean that in the sense that any modern 140 mm+ bike feels sluggish on the typically mellow trail centre descents.

You're clearly way better than me... my day at Afan was arguably harder than my day after at BPW. BPW doesn't have the rocks, roots, terrain changes, uppy bits, downy bits, it's less of a day out for me.

As I said above, descents are easily comparable with the easier half of BPW. Which seem to be the trails there that get the most traffic.
My bike is certainly "trail" not "gnarpoon" and I guess I'm just a bit rubbish.

Seems like that at Llandegla as well. – more so than at other trails

Last few times I've been at Llandegla recently (on a weekend) its been dead. Used to struggle for parking but not anymore. Weirdly quiet. But yeah its dominated by ebikes these days, but that doesn't bother me nor do I think that's the reason it's now very quiet.

More to do with the fact that every trail they've built or 'updated' in the last few years they've actually made worse or as with the new Michelin trail it just doesn't work and is a total cock up.
It doesn't even link up in to an existing route.
Whoever is in charge there is out of touch and is making the trails worse and worse. Some of the new stuff is that bad its embarrassing.
Throw in the extra person in the car charges (which in itself is taking the p**s) and general parking price hikes and its a no brainer its dying a slow death.

I think a lot of people ride primarily for the downhills, but also don't want to just uplift. If that's what you want then you can get a lot more of it on a single hillside with a fire road to climb and multiple tracks going down than you would on a trail centre loop. See Barry Sidings, Golfie, numerous areas in FoD etc, Afan masts. If you want to ride a big loop and don't mind/prefer fire road and road climbs then you can do that in South Wales and FoD without going anywhere near a trail centre, and with more varied and exciting downhill trails. Can't remember the last time I went to a trail centre to ride the marked trails.

Thats true, I am proud of myself for clearing the white's climb, its a fun challenge. Thats probably something becoming less common in MTB these days.
But if I'm doing Whites and Blade on the same day, I'm taking the fire road rather than doing it a second time.

Is it just me, or are more people steering away from XC these days?

I haven't had time or fitness to get to Wales for quite a few years now but this makes sense. Pretty much everyone I talk to these days goes to BPW, some mention CyB, but very few talk about Afan/Glyncorrwg.

Still, bodes well for me when I do finally leave the county as I'll be heading for the likes of Afan over BPW. If you can't ride up it, you shouldn't ride down it 😀

We used to go down and stay near Afan every year, ride all the trailcentres, that was the standard "south wales holiday". We'd usually do the same in the north for cyb etc.

Then, one year we went to BPW and that was a great addition. Then we went to BPW and the FOD. Then we discovered BMCC. And now our wales week is all uplifts, and we basically don't even try to talk ourselves into visiting Afan. I do miss the old pedalled holiday but you just get so much more riding done.

Tweed Valley still has a greater concentration of people near it which means more frequent flyers, but if it were to have 4 different uplift venues that'd draw away tons of the tourist trade. You can't really do an uplift holiday in Scotland, not without relocating, so "one day on the uplift, the rest pedalled" has become a standard tweed valley holiday in the same way as lots of uplifts has in south wales. And Afan etc always seemed more dependent on tourism in the first place.

I do think it's a shame in a lot of ways, I'm not sure that a lot of the older trail centres are really viable now, and the whole "put up an attraction to draw people to the area" has fallen by the wayside a bit. Think of Laggan, it basically paid for itself within years, that just wouldn't happen now. Would you build a Kirroughtree, or an Afan? But in other ways it's obviously great.

Cost of travel doesn't make any difference to my visits to "local" trail centre. Instead of mixing that up with day trips to further-away ones though, I'm doing a few more bridleway rides closer to home.

Looked around a bit more during/after Storm Arwen and found different places to go, then kept going there.

Cost of everything kills off doing long weekends to further-away trail centres.

Back to the office initiative means commuting is sucking up weekday evening time, leaving chores that need doing on the weekend.

I think people are realising that going down is a lot more fun than going up. We do a BPW weekend with the Cwmcarn XC loop on the Sunday and it's good fun but not a patch on hooning it down BPW on the Saturday. It would be amazing to see some funding to put some more trails at Cwmcarn.

Totally agree with @Lucky7500 . Im down the Golfie most weekends and It's rammed . At 11 or 12 on a sunday at the top of NYNY I've seen as much as 10 -20 guys hanging about. Indeed our group yesterday was 10 of us mostly local but a dad and a son from Chorley. It's a good thing though Innerleithen now has 4 bike shops plenty of air bnb and normal accomodation and most people will only really do the Golfie , GT and DH traquair side. Most will never ride Yair , Thornielee , glenbenna or cademuir.
As for Penmanshiel It's a great wee hill and the new jumpline on the other hill will be great when finished , A real labour of love for the builder.

Things i noticed were that lockdown made a lot of people find out about what is local, i tend to hit FoD mostly, as well as up Dursley/Cranham/etc, then days out at CwmCarn and BPW.

As others say, to go to Afan, i have to pass FoD, CwmCarn, etc, it just means time in the car that i could be on the bike, FoD has every type of trail you can want, and you can do big loops around the place linking stuff up, BPW is just a place to go for a day of fun, but at nearly 50 quid a ticket, it's not something i do often, weirdly doing it this Saturday though!

I agree with @argee completely, Afan is by no means bad, but to get there I have to pass FOD, BPW and Cwmcarn, it's just not worth the drive.

And even at afan it feels like masts has more traffic than the main trails. The allure of pedalling up a rocky nadgy climb for an hour before doing some descents that are fun for 20 seconds at a time before a mini climb isn't much fun on a modern bike.

IMO trail centre descents need to be more engaging, take the lower half of BPW - that's probably the benchmark for easy going fun trails and that's spoken by someone who can't stand the place for how commercial it is. Afan/coed y brenin etc need trails like that. Sure they have the odd good section but not enough to warrant the full loops etc.

It would be amazing to see some funding to put some more trails at Cwmcarn.

There was for the new blue but seeing as the place was basically built on EU Objective 1 funding (as was most of the Welsh centres, even BPW had some) then that avenue is closed. Caerphilly Council did chuck £160k at Cwmcarn a few years ago but all that bought was some new walls and signs in the car park, some EV charging points and a new barrier for the entrance to Forest Drive. The blue and the resurfaced Forest Drive road came from EU match funding to repair the damage caused by the felling and the fire. If you want to see how the trails are funded without Objective 1, look at Glyncorrwg (nothing for nearly a decade, the small bike park was a separate thing), Brechfa (again nothing bar reparations post-felling) and Coed Trallwm (closed in 2018).

Any new stuff, like the Enduro trails at Cwmcarn and the rebuilt Skyline at Glyncorrwg, are done by locals then adopted if they're safe. Funding will be poor from now on as the commercial uplift centres are sucking in all the paying customers, eroding the economic benefit argument for Welsh Assembly money to be put into the older places.

It's an aggressive cycle. The more less funding the trail centre's get, the worse condition and more dated the trails/facilities feel, thus the less people go, and in turn they receive less funding.

I feel like FoD really has it all in terms of A) Easy to get to B) DH/push up trails C) enduro/xc trails D) cafe and bike shop.

That really should be the template, I know it's bloomin expensive, but that does work.

I feel like FoD really has it all in terms of A) Easy to get to B) DH/push up trails C) enduro/xc trails D) cafe and bike shop.

I reckon Cwmcarn has that too - 3 normal xc ish (but quite fast down hills on them compared to some other trail centres) trails, downhill runs with uplift, steeper off piste style trails, bike shop, loos / changing room / bike wash / cafe.

Afan does always seem run down when I’ve been there and Brechfa didn’t seem to have any facilities at all.

CYB was pretty good in terms of upkeep and cafe although I didn’t love the 2 black loops we did back to back. Needs another visit though to try some other trails.

‘Degla for me had a lovely new cafe but the trails were a bit meh. The black sections were really red imo and there wasn’t enough of that sort of thing.

Interesting thread - stayed in Afan Thurs - Sun last week, and was having similar conversations with mate I was riding with. We both used to ride there regularly 10+ years ago and were commenting how quiet it was and at what point does the place become no longer viable.

Riding wants have obviously changed, but I think there's something in the travel thing. I live on the Quantocks and they are rammed most weekends, and have been for the last 2 years. Can't help thinking that coincided with Wales being shut during Covid and people finding new places. With Strava and easily available gps files, it's as easy to find a good route. Why plough on for another 2 hours when you can ride there?

It's a shame though. Was a lovely nostalgic trip last week and I have huge affection for Afan, but I can't see it ever getting the investment it needs to compete again.

Ditto my friend. Afan has a soft spot in my heart and is worth a trip every now and then, but it's simply not as good as the closer alternatives. There is nothing Afan offers that other don't.

Wales needs a DMBIN[W]S or similar. If you look at the progress that scotland is making in terms of mountain bike development, its on a different scale now to Wales and I think wales is suffering from that lack of development.

So folk are staying local and exploring thier area more OR getting the most bang for their buck and hitting BPW OR going abroad.

Feels like the sport is evolving, not sure what into...

I still like a.massive loop and the adventure that goes with it. Maybe a trail centre with some off piste to mix it up.

A DMBinS-esque operation for Wales would be perfect. It seems like most "classic" trail centres are fading away, and not to get philosophical or anything, but times change, styles change and clearly trails change.

Wales needs a DMBIN[W]S or similar. If you look at the progress that scotland is making in terms of mountain bike development, its on a different scale now to Wales and I think wales is suffering from that lack of development.

Scotland helped along a fair bit by the right to ride any path I expect. Most areas of Wales have very few bridleways. Of course DMBinW could campaign for better access, but with relatively small land area within easy reach of large populations I fear Scotland-style freedoms would never work.

Apparently BPW can have 500 people visit on a weekend per day now they’ve split the morning / afternoon….

Wow - just looked and I will never go on a summer weekend again. Money grabbing to the extreme

verderers
Free Member

I feel like FoD really has it all in terms of A) Easy to get to B) DH/push up trails C) enduro/xc trails D) cafe and bike shop.

I think it's partly self-sustaining too, FOD is usually busy, and not just that but it tends to be happy busy, full of people of all ages having a good time. That makes it really welcoming for less serious/newer riders, and generally just easier to also have a good time yourself, it's infectious. And that kind of multiplies when you have so much of a range of riding- like, BMCC has a similarly joyful feeling about it, to me, but it doesn't have the range of riding.

There's just something bloody lovely about FOD... Get on the bus, ride past the blue, see a family out for their first ride, blast down Sheepskull or something, then see a kid on a balance bike doing the pump track,then go do some half-abandoned offpiste in a random lovely bit of forest, then go have a burger at the cafe and everyone's just mingling. Glentress can come close but not really. Flyup 417 lacks the scale and the open-to-all feel.

with relatively small land area within easy reach of large populations I fear Scotland-style freedoms would never work.

Folk keep parroting this but seem to forget that the Scottish Land Reform Act applies to areas next to its largest cities too - like the Pentland Hills outside Edinburgh. It's not all barren wasteland.

@Northwind You've hit the nail on the head there. It's got the right mix of pretty much everything. Aaand, it's just the right side of commercialisation, it has all the facilities etc, without losing most of its fod charm. It's just epic.