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Jim, Im hoping i'm healed up by the 7th. If its not looking good mate then you can have my place.

Having said that, i'm so pumped for this i'll just ride through the pain.

Nice - episode 3

I think I might have to move back to Wales! This and the new trails that are hopefully going to be built at Cwmcarn, excellent!

Good luck to them.

I'm going on the WBP on the 8th and cwm carn wales on the 7th.

Apparently the ride back up isn't to bad at WBP

Are you all planning on taking dh bike's? From what ive read/ videos ive watched it looks like 200mm would be overkill on most of it.also ive found a cyclist freindly b&b not too far from location for £25 p/n for a single room or £40 double/twin if anyone wants details. Im heading there towards the end of september/early october

Hi Kev, can you PM me the details of that b&b please?
Cheers
Rob

Ill be taking the DH bike as its an uplift, but I imagine short travel bikes will work very well too.

So... headed to Bike Park Wales with Northern Tom yesterday. The drive from Junction 26 was 2hr 40. It's 2 hours from the m25 / M4 junction. Motorway or dual carriageway all the way to within 500 yards of the venue.

There is lots of parking below the main centre which does result in a bit of a push up but nothing that's too much of a pain. You get your uplift pass on the gate to stop any faffing once inside the venue. Sweet! The centre its self is good but was very busy at lunchtime with the uplift totally full and lots... and I mean lots... of people also trail riding. Lunch looked pretty good although we brought our own. Didn't check out the bike shop but it looked an ok size. There is a bike wash but it had ran out of water by 5.30. Overall however the whole setup was pretty good.

The uplift consisted of 3 trailers, very similar to FOD. At the start of the day there was hardly any wait but towards the back end it slowed down a lot, as the ambulance used the same track to access the trails, and there were a couple of incidents. The uplift is maybe 10 mins, and not too rough.

There is a good range of trails and by the end of the day we were cutting different tracks together to mix it up. The big win is that even the easy ones are great fun. The blues are really flowy with some kick ass berms. The reds are still flowy, but faster with some features along the way. The blacks throw in some larger features, rock gardens and a bit of steepness in parts. Nothing to the level of the balls on rear wheel bits of Triscombe or Revolution but enough to get loose. The 'pro line' sections are biiiig jumps rather than knar tech. There are other places which are more challenging, but BPW is fun fun fun. If I had to sum it up id say you spend more time focussed on carrying your speed than worrying about hanging onto the brakes

We saw lots of 140mm + bikes on the uplift and everywhere apart from the rocky trails they would be excellent. All but the steep parts of the blacks would be all weather. The soil does look like clay and how well it manages sustained rain is yet to be seen.

One warning - a van was broken into near where we parked and 3 bikes stolen. We over heard the Police officer who came, say that Merthyr is pretty bad for that sort of thing. As is normal when @ S Wales trail centres be very careful with your stuff when there.

Overall a really good place with a well organised uplift and excellent trails. Good for mixed groups too. If you have never done an uplift it's great.. if you're a bit more seasoned its really good fun too. Ill be keen to hear what everyone else thinks as they visit it over the next few months.

Nice to be back on the big bouncer too. I love that ploughing machine!

Any video ?

Unfortunately not - An SD card error put pay to that - next time maybe!

Nice work reviewing Jon. I thought it would take much longer to get there

Nice write up Jon, sounds like you had a great day and travel time is bang on for more trips eh

I'm also really Interested in how the place will hold up in the wet as it seems like a great place to get back doing some gentle DH when I eventually get back on the bouncer! Had a few gentle rides on the spesh now which have gone well thankfully, so looking good for BPW at some point this year

Yo NW - its a fair distance but an easy drive. 380mile round trip I think. I felt fine doing all the driving in one day.

Hey Grin - I think it would be a great place to get back in the swing of things and test out an injury. Both Tom and I were carrying annoying injuries and we started out on the blues to test everything out. You can also cut onto other trails 3/4 of the way down so do a blue with a bit of red etc.

Great review Jon. I'm heading there on Friday 20/9 and it will be my first uplift. Really looking forward to it as I hate them nasty uphill hills! Might be something to do with the 18 stone I'm trying to push up them! Athough saying that, we might just sneak in a cheeky Cwmcarn on the friday afternoon. Just ordered a new chain as I snapped one the last time! And wider tyres. Brake pads. Gloves. Long sleeved top. Warerproof jacket. Oh, did I mention a rather nice Saint M820 front brake!

Thanks for the review!

Rob