Coed-y-Brenin's special place in the history of mountain biking is underpinned by a great selection of trails which continues to evolve.
From early in the development of Coed-y-Brenin, the trailbuilders sought to reflect the rocky nature of the underlying terrain. How well they succeeded, visitors discover within seconds of rolling under the giant suspension fork by the visitor centre.
This opening section, common to several trails, is a sustained, rolling rock garden. It has deliberately been made fairly challenging right at the start to deter inexperienced riders before they get too far into the forest. From here the trails fan out.
The first three are all graded red and suitable for most reasonably experienced mountain bikers.
Temptiwr (Welsh for Tempter) is a short, sweet taster, just 8.7km long. After that opening rock-garden there’s some fast, swoopy singletrack then a steady fire-road climb before the final twisting, rocky descent; this isn’t hideously technical anywhere but it just keeps on coming.
The 18km MBR trail (named for and sponsored by one of the UK’s leading mountain bike magazines) starts and finishes as for Temtiwr but adds lots of extra singletrack, including the famous, or infamous descent of the Pink Heifer. This section has recently been rebuilt and is due to reopen in Mar 2007.
Across the river is the 20km Tarw (Welsh for Bull); highlights include the wickedly tight bends of Heart of Darkness and the technical Rocky Horror Show (need you ask?)
The remaining two trails are graded black, partly due to their greater length and the isolated nature of some sections.
The 31km Dragon's Back includes over 700 metres of climbing (and of course descent!), topping out at 400m above sea-level with great views to the peak of Cadair Idris. Spotting a buzzard or goshawk might lift the spirits too, before a long technical descent with individual sections named for Addams family characters.
The Beast is the ultimate challenge at Coed-y-Brenin, 38km long with 780 metres of ascent and descent. It is essentially a combination of the MBR and Dragon's Back routes, so there are many technical sections to contend with on top of the distance, and the guide time to complete the trail is anything up to 6 hours.
