Floaty Feeling

Some time ago I headed over to Llandegla in North Wales and rode the new trails there. I must admit I was disappointed and there wasn’t much incentive to go back. recently Neil from Ride the Alps has returned to the UK and this weekend was a chance to catch up with him and Si Hoe from my group and get some riding in. Llandegla was the venue and it was going to be a chance to get the new Patriot out again.

The riding was radically different. See the thing is since I was last there the team at Coed Llandegla have been a bit busy…

There is an all new Black run with a 2km downhill and in all honesty it is a truly great trail. Imagine a forested hillside with a ribbon of singletrack snaking and carving its way gradually downslope. Add in various jumps, berms and drops and then ride it as fast as you can, pushing your tyres for grip. It is a truly great bit of construction. Enough of my dribbling watch these videos of Nathan Rennie and Jimmy G to get an idea of what I am talking about. Actually the quality is rubbish, but you get the idea that it’s fast and flowing…

Added to this there are various sets of doubles, tabletops, stutter bumps and jumps and several places along the red and black route that provides a chance to push the limits and progress your riding. It was great to spend some time trying to keep up with Neil on the jumps and even after three runs the big set of doubles still eluded being cleaned. It’s a pesky one because of the table top and small jump before the doubles which makes it hard to go in with enough speed.

Out on the moors near the forest park there is some excellent riding too and we took some time this afternoon to explore some of these options and the payback was some fantastic descending on singletrack through mossy bog and autumnal heather. It’s now back on the list as a great riding venue. There are a few photos from todays riding up in the Llandegla gallery. To finish off a great day riding, I finally picked up a copy of The Collective‘s Roam. Great film. It was good to watch it properly at last.

Oh and I bumped into Jim Morrison at the Cafe too. See his rather ace restaurant Darcy’s Cafe Bar Trattoria in Shifnal is closed on Sundays so he was taking a day off. Jim, Jam, Nige and I raced the Mountain Mayhem 24hr this year. Jim went onto take part in an Ironman later in the summer. he had various advice from Black Country Tri Club riders and went onto beat them all putting in a solid 21st place finish. Fantastic result and it was good to catch up…