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Today I finally got out to Nant Yr Arian after deliberating for ten years or so. Beautiful day for it; sunny, blue skies, not too hot or cold, trails mostly dry with just a few massive puddles and didn’t see anyone on the whole trail. Amazing views and a great sense of remoteness. So with all that going on, I was having a complete stormer of the first 15ish miles, thinking it was without doubt the best man made Welsh trail I’d done.
And then came the climbing. It just went on forever up that fire road. I love climbing when it’s mostly switch-back stuff through the woods like Verderers or Cwmcarn. But that last 1/3rd killed my enthusiasm.
So I was wondering: is there a reason why it’s all fire trail climbing and not switchbacks through the woods? Is there a control on what goes on in the woods?
Does the Summit trail have all the fun twisty trails without too much firetrail climbing?
It's cos of the enduro begat enduro conundrum, which is shortly to result in 'everyone' buying evokes.
A few people like burly bikes and downhill.
The don't like climbing much.
Manufacturers make bikes more burly.
They're not much fun uphill.
People don't enjoy the uphill.
So trail builders put less effort into them.
So people enjoy the uphill even less.
So they buy burlier bikes so that at least the downhill is more fun.
Which makes even interesting fun uphill a bit shite.
So trail builders just use fireoads to connect bits of downhill.
Which everyone hates because they are shite and boring and dull.
So they buy a burlier bike to make the downhill more fun to compensate, and cos it's ennndurrrrro innit.
Etc until there are no fun uphill left and everyone buys an ebike to make the shite uphill go by quicker
****ing autocorrect.
Ebikes.
enduro slating conspiracies aside, Is it not just much cheaper to build a trail where the climb uses fireroads
It also gains you more height more easily. Of the other climbs you list the FoD doesn't have that much height and cwmcarn has a pretty significant chunk of fireroad at the end of the climb where you actually gain a good amount of height.
Wouldn't call the syfydrin trail man-made really - once you're out of the trial centre isn't it just a bunch of orange stickers on farmers tracks? It's certainly a nice ride, mind.
That big pull up towards the end - As said, it's got to be quite expensive to build a load of trail-centre zig zags up a climb, I think the funding would be prioritised elsewhere. Glentress is built on a hill, and one of the busiest TCs in the UK, and all of the initial trails going up through the woods were added incrementally over time. It was one big fireroad pull at the beginning. Nant-y-Arian seems pretty quiet so maybe there wasn't much in the way of second-phase funding?
About half way up that climb, you now divert to the left for a tiny bit of uphill single track- a few years ago that wasnt there, so count yourself lucky. I agree of course with you OP, it goes on and on, even when you get to the crossroads it goes on some more, and then at the very end these is a mega steep wall to climb, before final descent....
Acutally, I didn't mind it at all as the gradient wasn't bad.
Missus was plodding, so I spent the entire time trying (and failing) to wheelie.
The most progress I've ever made in a single day. 🙂
kimbers
enduro slating conspiracies aside, Is it not just much cheaper to build a trail where the climb uses fireroads
Absolutely this. It costs about the same to do 10 feet of climb as it does to do 10 feet of (basic machine built) descent. And climbs need to be longer so that adds up a lot. Also, with a big build, there'll pretty much always be an access road there already- it might not be suitable for bikes (too steep or too wandering and long) but if it is then it just makes sense to use it.
Singletrack climbs are a big luxury. Even more so in Wales where half the trail centres have fire road descents. I love it when a place manages to afford that luxury but... Imagine you're building a new development. You have a choice of one bucket-built blue climb and descent, all singletrack. Or 3 blue descents and a fireroad climb.
(and even when they exist, people still go up the fireroads! I've no idea what proportion of glentress riders bypass the final blue climb up to the buzzard's and use the fireroad instead, but it's a fair amount. And then others ride past cool runnings and grind on up the road.)
Does Syfyfyfyfydrin still have that one really brilliant short sharp climb that seems to be a fire road with a massive gully eroded down the middle? Best climb evar, or it was in 2011.