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Kidneys
So @Doctor_Cake and I took a trip over to Bikepark Wales this weekend for rad trail funz. DC hasn’t done any trail riding before, and doesn’t own a trail bike, so we hired a Trek Slash 650b full sus monster bike for her whilst I rode my hardtail Stanton Ti.
The slash did look like a fun ride - 160mm pikes at the front, 160mm at the back and massive 2.4” rubber on sensibly sized 650b wheels gives you a lot of bike to play with, although an uplift was, well, helpful, as the thing clocked in at around 15kg.
Shonky weather, but the trails were in rude health. Being graded ‘blue’, the easiest trails are not dull and still have a couple of challenging features and it took a couple of runs of the two blues for me to find my footing again, so I was very pleased to see DC confidently tackling the rocky sections - the spot of BMXing she’s been doing recently helping there, no doubt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjzeEDHRMpg&list
Having consumed an epic baked potato at the very well equipped cafe we decided to ride up the fire road to the trail head whilst the uplift drivers were on lunch. It only took us 35 minutes, despite lugging chunky bikes up the slopes, and the view from the opposite side of the hill is pretty awesome, so definitely worth doing once if you want to feel like you’ve earned your lunch.
Later we tackled a red run together and the two chunky rock drop offs at the start - built to dissuade riders without the required skills for the rest of the trail - didn’t trouble DC at all. Later on the trail becomes the super-rocky ‘Ring Dinger’, kinda living up to its name by puncturing several of our group’s rubber, but again DC was unflustered and navigated the rocks without drama.
This was my second outing to BPW and overall I felt more confident on the trails and got some good air at times. It’s a great place to put in to practice new skills, but due to the super-fast nature of the trails it’s not a great place to learn new tricks or session obstacles - there’s no way to push back up the trails to repeat a feature or section.
They do have plans there to create 9 - NINE - more runs and extend the cross country climb into a massive loop, so good stuff is afoot there.
The uplift remains booked up for months in advance, so if you fancy giving it a go, drop a date in the calendar for early next year or prepare to make the climb at the end of each run. If you opt for the later you’ll certainly earn the mega-lunch portions.
Now I have to clean / service this, though.