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pete b Member  Member#: 2479 Location: Registered: 09-10-2006 Last Visit: 08-02-2012 Diary Entries: 218 Mood: Chilled |
30th July 2010 Mt. Biking: Afan - Skyline (sort of) Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: 17ish Sea Temperature: Weather: Murky then sunshine Max Speed: Distance Covered: Decided to do a long ride & the Skyline looked to fit the bill - never done it before* & the name conjured up panoramic views from great heights (cumutively 2000m climbing). The picture developed in my mind of dry, well marked trail centre tracks. Set off at 09:55 reckoning on about 5.5 hours. Climbed up and where Whites Level seperated found a diversion in place due to logging operations - so being a good boy I followed them. As the diversion ended I bumped into 2 resting riders who'd been ahead of me & they said to ignore the diversions and further round pick up a pink arrow sprayed on th ground & that it was worth going back to do the missing part. Which I did - past all the no entry warning signs etc & by the windfarm until I exited the exclusion zone & noticed the pink arrow & non-Skyline yellow route markers. Followed these for a while until it dawned that these markers and the accompanying barrier tapes were event markers. It was long since that I'd seen 'Skyline' markers so thought I may as well carry on following the event markers as they're bound to lead back to the centre (oh, really?) A stop on a bit of tree shrouded singletrack to tighten the headset & have a dump made me realise how quiet it was, apart from the aforementioned riders I hadn't seen anyone for a couple of hours, makingg me think it's not a good place to sustain an injury or mechanical. Anyway, onward & upward (& downward too sometimes) & I hadn't a f*cking clue where I was. Contrary to my idyllic preconceptions the trails were sopping wet & like streams in places so when I pulled out my inkjet printed half-arsed pdf map it was all I could do to keep the soggy paper from falling apart - my only nav aid: a bit of blotting paper with smudgy ink! Onward & downward, mainly on singletrack still, until traffic noise got louder and I saw the ribbon of a dual carriageway - might've been the Timbuktoo outer ring road for all I knew. Then I passed 2 large ponds and some kind of mineral extraction plant - still f*cking clueless but it certainly didn't feel right. Decided to keep going until I hit a fire road & then stick on it as it's bound to lead somewhere. And sure enough after a while I hit a fire road marked National Cycleway Route 47 - very informative - not! But at least it must go somewhere so I stuck with it until a mirage appeared of two lady hiker types - 'Am I headed toward Glyncorrwg?' I enquired of the mirage 'Yes indeed, carry on until you get to the wind farm & turn right' Ah, 'the windfarm', just the landmark I'd been hoping to see - but contrary to another of my idyllic preconceptions the Skyline didn't offer much in the way of panoramas, just loads of f*ckin' trees blocking the sight of everything! Shortly after more climbing the windfarm appeared in the distance & I headed toward it - now I could have followed the mirages advice but lo & behold there was a Skyline waymarker - I'll follow that so I don't miss any of the fun bits! So with the windfarm behind me away I went on afire road then some singletrack which had a T junction: left was the route, right was 'Shortcut No. 1' bailout, 'a bit late in the trail for the first shortcut' thought I. (Dope!) So on I climbed, it didn't feel right but at least it would be downhill if I had to U-turn, watching the waymarker numbers increment from 19 to 27 until I got to a strange junction so I pulled out the remnants of the map to find I was going round for a second lap & thought 'bollocks, time to U-turn and take short cut no.1' The clue was in the fact the final waymarker is no. 68. After that all went swimmingly well as I enjoyed the mainly technical descent back to the centre arriving after 6 hours on the bike. Getting lost in atrail centre! Jesus wept :-) No map, no compass, no nothing - had I taken the sat nav from the car at least I'd have known which way I was pointing. And what was worse was the realisation I'd ridden the Skyline twice before & we'd come to the conclusion that it's a quantity over quality route and we'd not bother again. Doh! The Wall & Penhydd between them make a far better ride & Nant Yr Arian offers the singletrack trail centre experience with a lot of riding in more open country - much nicer. When I later checked at home the ponds and mineral works I'd passed were at Cwmgwrach - well away from the Skyline. *When I started relating the story to 'er indoors as soon as I mentioned 'Skyline' she quipped that I'd already ridden it. Grrr! |
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