Chocolate Log

My second visit to Afan was blessed with traditional Welsh weather and it tipped it down before, during, and after the ride. The top of the days agenda was the new trail 'Energy' brought to us by 'NPower renewables®' which forms a 3.5k addition to the existing White's Level loop.

'The trail demands energy, technical skill and daring from bike riders'
(So the website says)

Lets see about that shall we...

The trail starts with a series of different sized tabletops (any of which I challenge you to clear) which are really fun to pump through or jump and flat land. After that a variety of excellent very fast, high sided berms to rail. One section takes you through a really dark section of dense forest - think the speeder bike scene in Return of the Jedi and you get the tree dodging idea.

Its actually a quite pedally in places and my average fitness found it a bit of a lung buster halfway through. Having said that the cold and rain had tired us quite quickly and Andy's new waterproof socks were leaking.

On the minus side there are a few small doubles and jump features in odd places where you don't really carry much speed that didn't make much sense. I found myself annoyed as they were nice jumps but I think they would have been much better placed elsewhere.

The final section is much more exposed and has a bit more ascent to do - the trail (as with most trails in this area) are excellent even it the wet but the final de-forested section was a bit on the muddy side so not as quick and a bit Bon Jovi.

To conclude there are no horrible drops gaps or suprises so I agree with a bit of 'technical skill' but would have to disagree with 'daring'.

We stayed in Bryn Teg guest house which is in the nearby village of Cymmer and offers
secure cycle storage area and and a clothes washing service courtesy of Jennie.

If you venture into these parts make sure you check out the friendly local boozer (The Station House) complete with Welsh dragons. The local traffic cop Wayne tells one of the best pub jokes I've ever heard followed by a lot of the worse, and the Landlord does some rather spectacular card tricks.

My highlight of the evening came when a local asked me to describe Andy's bike to him in some detail. 30mins later he took Andy aside and did the 'my mates got hold of a bike' story to perfection and tried to sell him a Silver Spesh Enduro for £50.

If only I had my camera to capture his face.

Get your arse to Afan.