It’s been a while since we headed up to Antur Stiniog in North Wales so we see what’s changed since it opened in 2012
At this old slate mine the wheels are still spinning at full speed so we’ve been back to check out their new trails
Antur Stiniog has a bit of a reputation. Part of that comes from the trails, which are rugged, rocky and unforgiving. The second factor is its setting, amid craggy mountains cascading with jagged piles of dark grey slate – a post-industrial landscape that’s steeped in atmosphere. Finally, there’s the Welsh weather, often wet and moody with eddies of mist and swirling cloud. The combination of all these can make this bike park feel rather intimidating to beginners. It’s something that the guys behind Antur are all too aware of, so to quash that foreboding rep they’ve been hard at work sculpting two new, rollable flow trails and turning one of the existing reds into a jump line. There’s also a new black run to give the hardcore gnar-lover something to sink their teeth into.
The public launch for these new trails was back in September, when Steve Peat cut the tape and headed up a mass-start, Le Mans-style race down the new red track, ‘Detonator’. Sadly, we couldn’t make the party, but it was clear that a return visit was long overdue, so we got on the phone to local racer Owain James (aka OJ) to show us around, commandeered the bicycle-wrangling skills of Chain Reaction Cyclessponsored Enduro World Series pro Elliott Heap and charted a course for North Wales.
Alright bud
We’re greeted at the gates by Antur’s Bike Development Officer, Adrian Bradly, better known as Bud. If you’ve ridden here then no doubt you’ll have been warmly welcomed by his lilting Welsh tones. But today he seems genuinely saddened by the weather. “It’s been bright sun the last three days!” he promises, gesturing at the lead-grey sky. “Every time a camera comes out…” Bud’s the main man on the ground at Antur, and he’s as keen to dispel the impression that it always rains here as he is to shake off the centre’s fearsome reputation. But we reassure him that, because it’s Wales in November, we weren’t exactly expecting Costa del Stiniog.
A day of uplift-assisted trail bike fun is more than enough to keep us smiling.
We kick things off with a run down the new red, where it seems that neither Elliott nor OJ got the brief about making Antur appear more accessible. Barely one turn in and their back wheels are already cutting shapes as they slide foot-off around the switchbacks and launch off the jumps. You can hardly blame them, though – with soft dirt, freshly-groomed transitions and
WITH SOFT DIRT, FRESHLY GROOMED TRANSITION SAND A SPRINKLING OF LOOSE S HALE, IT’ S HARD TO RESIST THROWING UP A LITTLE ROOST
a sprinkling of loose shale, it’s hard to resist throwing up a little roost.
While most of Antur’s trails carve their way down the front face of the hill overlooking the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, Detonator takes a different line, cutting across the uplift road and down the backside in a series of fast, switchbacking straights and low tabletops. The jumps may be small but that isn’t to say you can’t go big, as OJ demonstrates, yanking off one lip and almost going into orbit. He hips smoothly into the bank first time round, but then proves that it’s all too easy to overcook it on his second run, when he goes even higher and further past the lander, and on touchdown veers into the dirt bank. Catching the tip of his bar, OJ is ejected off track at full speed. Luckily the dirt is soft and he’s back upright in no time, jersey and pride only slightly muddied. Now it’s Elliott’s turn. He comes in equally fast, but instead of pulling up, throws the bike sideways and near pedal-scrapes the lip as he scrubs over it. We’re left open-mouthed, but he just shrugs. This is how he’d ride a feature like this on any day, even at a race, he explains.
Humble pie
As a bunch who ride bikes quite a lot, we’re generally of the opinion that we’re fairly alright at handling them. It’s only when you compare yourself to someone of Elliott’s calibre that you’re really put in your place. This lad from Wigan isn’t just lightning-quick, as his 2018 EWS junior overall title demonstrates, he’s unbelievably stylish as well. Elliott seems to have an ability to throw his bike in any direction and into any shape he wants, and when it comes to unpredictable drifty turns, he’s got a sixth sense about exactly when the back wheel will slide and how to make it grip again. “Photos are easy,” he says. “You’ve just got to look fast. I’ve had some wild moments filming raw videos with Tommy C [Slice of British Pie creator Tom Caldwell]!” Given
THE JUMPS ARE SMALL BUT YOU CAN STILL GO BIG, AS OJ DEMONSTRATES, YANKING OFF ONE LIP AND ALMOST GOING INTO ORBIT
that he’s not exactly been hanging about today, we hate to imagine the pace Elliott would be riding at if we were filming too.
We move on to sample the next of Antur’s new creations. The green-graded ‘Plug and Feathers’ weaves the longest and most gentle route down the hill, easing beginners into the world of North Wales trails. And then it’s on to the new black, ‘RePowder’, which mixes big jumps and high-speed fly-offs with some classic rocky tech. The dirt is only just settling on this and it takes us back to what Antur must have been like in the early days – raw, rugged and wild! While the jumps roll smoothly with a packed-gravel surface, the turns in between are soft, with muddy ruts and loose dirt. They’re a challenge in today’s conditions, but will bed in and mellow out given a few months.
Re-Powder drops us out onto the old trails right before ‘Bendy G’, which was a new addition to the bike park in 2017. This steeply-twisting run of tight, perfectly-built bermed turns has got to be one of our favourites. Trying to hang on to the back of OJ and Elliott as they bounce their way up onto the high lines and rip around the apexes leaves us shaking with adrenaline by the bottom. When we fire out into the car park, the uplift bus is waiting and the trailer is nearly full. We sprint over and chuck the bikes on for another lap. With just the new trails ridden, we’ve still got plenty more to go at. The reshaped, red-graded ‘Drafft’ completes the recent developments, and then of course there are all the classics – ‘Black Powder’, ‘Wild Cart’ and ‘Jymper’. We’ll probably need several more runs…