It’s a fair drive up to Gwydir Forest in North Wales to check out the revamped former Marin trail, but it’s well worth the trip – feature-packed singletrack, rock gardens and jumps await
Positioned at the gateway to Snowdonia, we revisit this classic route, formerly known as the Marin trail
Barely 10 minutes into today’s ride and already things are getting hectic! The trio of Joe, Leo and Josh have spied a suitably drifty berm and they’re careering into it at full tilt, inside legs flailing and back wheels sliding. Then there’s Robin, who’s found a dodgylooking rock drop off to the side of the trail and is moments away from sending it into the sketchy, root-strewn downslope. And in the midst of all this there’s Matt’s dog, Oakley, threading a needle through the madness, tongue lolling and legs flying, undeterred by the whir of wheels all around. We don’t know where to look, and Laurence our photographer is spinning manically on the spot, trying to track the action.
It’s obviously been a bit wet up here in Wales recently, because it feels like everyone’s letting loose after a bout of cabin fever. Luckily, there aren’t many places round here better than Gwydir Forest for getting rid of excess energy on a mountain bike. It’s one of the classic Welsh trail centres (you may know it as Betws-y-Coed or by its former name, the Marin trail), but don’t interpret classic to mean old and boring – you can hardly ride a kilometre here without being forced to crank hard up a punchy climb or tipped into a fast-flowing descent.
The magnificent seven
The guys we’ve invited along today are making the most of it, too. Matt Snape and Oakley are the most local, and between them they’ve sniffed out every inch of trail in these parts. Then there’s Robin Arthur, who joined us earlier in the summer at Foel Gasnach. A couple of months down the line and his riding is just as on the edge as we remembered and, miraculously, he’s still in one piece. Although, his hands and forearms are covered in black paint – he was painting a car and spilt a tin of paint over himself, but his hands are no less capable of deathgripping the bar!
Rounding out the gang are Leo Housman, who rides for the Llanberis-based Ride.io team, and farmer-cum-DH-racer Josh Gleave, who, in between milking cows, has been setting the UK race scene alight this year. And then of course there’s Joe Smith – Propain Factory Racing rider, the man on the cover of last month’s mag and a guy who was an agonising puncture away from the Red Bull Hardline win this year.
Between everyone there’s no shortage of two-wheeled talent, and repeatedly through the day Joe demonstrates just how good he
is at riding dank Welsh woodlands. Not that he shows off or shouts about it, it’s just that while we’re skittering about on a slippery run of rocky rollers, Joe cruises in, calm and understated, and casually doubles through them. We guess a lack of traction doesn’t matter so much when your wheels aren’t on the ground.
Mawr mawr mawr
From mossy green woodland, we break cover from the trees and enjoy some gentle respite along a fireroad, which allows us to snatch a glance across to the peaks of Snowdonia, looming dark and jagged against the leaden sky. The relaxed pace doesn’t continue for long though, and soon we’re into more twists and rocky turns. Across a road, up a short, sharp ascent and we’re into the second half of the Gwydir Mawr. Although there’s only one redgraded trail loop here, it comes in two halves. There’s the 8.7km, action-packed Gwydir Bach (small), or the full 25km Gwydir Mawr (big), which is what we’re riding today.
One of the standout parts of this route is the Dswin Drwg, a section that was rebuilt a couple of years ago. The tight turns and rock drops make for a tricky test of bike handling, but it’s plain sailing for Josh, who gaps through the tumbledown drystone wall, tipping his bar away and skimming moss off the stones with his back wheel.
Ride till you drop
After more of the same, we punch up a climb and arrive in a clear-felled section of forest. Through the debris of stumps and logs is an arcing snake of perfectly-built turns and jumps that keeps us amused for ages. Matt steps up and shows us the local hot lines, gapping out the end of one berm and into the next downslope, grazing past a sawn-off stump and clipping
heads off the foxgloves. Joe turns his attention to the jump beyond, cranking out tabletops past horizontal, his inside leg bent double and his foot forced off the pedal.
It’s only when Leo mentions that he’s about to pass out from lack of food that we all remember it’s well past lunch and we’ve still plenty more trail to ride. Some emergency cereal bars bring him back from the brink just in time and we saddle up for the return leg, which is much more than just a meander through the trees. We’ve still got the final, shared descent of the Bach and Mawr trails to come, which has got to be one of the highlights of Gwydir. It has high-speed straights, fast turns and bone-shaking rock sections to skip through, all culminating in a row of sizable tabletops. If we had more beans in the legs we’d have been straight back up for another run, but it appears that everyone’s excess energy from earlier has been left out on the trail. Give us another day, and we’d be straight back out there for round two.
The promised land
Gwydir Forest has produced the goods and Matt explains that we’ve only just scratched the surface of the riding around here. He and the Snowdonia locals really do live in an MTB paradise, with proper mountains, several trail centres to choose from, plenty of natural bridleways and a few sneaky hand-cut gems in their back pockets. Energy (and bad weather) really are the only limiting factors, but if you pack your mac and eat your Shreddies, what’s stopping you?