John the Kiwi takes his family and his bikes back to NZ in a couple of weeks, so a load of us, mainly people I hadn’t met (Stockport Clarion roadie types) went over to Coed Y Brenin to ride the 38K Beast route.

Meeting Phil, Jaqs and the others Saturday morning was easy enough, but then had to wait around for ages for the others to turn up. A family dog had apparently eaten a quantity of condoms and had to be vetted. It’s not clear if the condoms were of the flavoured variety.

I’d heard and read a lot of stuff about the new trails at CYB recently and not much of it has been positive. All the possibile preconceptions had disappeared by the end of the first coupld of singletrack sections…I thought it was bloody brilliant. Big climbs, but loads and loads of very technical singletrack and twisty turny stuff. A bit of a relief too, as we arrived a few minutes earlier to a full car park. Think Saturday pm Tescos. I felt like a cycling sheep. I was expecting congestion, in fact.

Phil had texted me the previous night to tell me that his frame was cracked, so I’d also brought the big bad Patriot for him to get a beasting on. I think he might have noticed some of the bigger rocks at least.

Big up to the Stockport rigid singlespeeders, and the caff halfway round the trail! Carrot cake was amazing, but after a ride like that any old shite tastes good.