Sunday 28th March 2010 10:00 am Joe’s Back Garden plus a trip down into Artists valley via the Chute

Meet at 10am at the Pendam car park at the base of Hippity Hop. A long ride.

We will ride out along the side of Plynlimon to Hyddgen and then out onto Mach 3 and down the chute. Ride back via trails in Artists valley. A long but cracking ride what ever the weather and good to get some miles into those legs ready for Enduro season

Post here if you're going to join us

Al.

I'm heading up to Ponterwyd Tues p.m. and planning to ride a similar-sounding route I picked up off the ystwyth-mtb site. Not an area I know though (I'm based in Devon so usually ride Dartmoor / Brendons / Quantocks) so trying to find out more. What are the conditions like at the moment? Is 4.5 hours a reasonable amount of time to allow for a reasonably fit XC rider, presuming no hanging around or going off course, or am I being over-optimistic - I'll be taking lights in case but prefer to know in advance. Anything else it would be useful to know? Had been looking originally at heading up past from Nany yr Arian past Beguilyn to a loop around Dylife then back past Beguilyn ,but this one seems to keep cropping up. Thanks!

Hi Tipps...
I've seen your post on Ystwyth MTB. 4.5 hours should be plenty of time. We took it at a very leisurely pace with lots of stops for chats, pasties, sandwiches etc. Our time out was 6 hours but only 3:45 of that was moving time.

Conditions were fine, although we are expecting quite a bit of rain in the next couple of days so that may well change.

I've uploaded a Google Earth file to my weblog that you should be able to download- Joes Back Garden & The Chute Route Map.

I've uploaded it to Sports Track Live as well.

Hope that helps, and have fun.
Al.

Thanks Al,

Had visions of this one being the 'first ride of Spring' but the driving snow soon changed that...

Mixture of conditions and heading off later than planned meant it was dark by the time I got to the end of the singletrack from Hyddgen so decided to double back to Hyddgen rather than try an unknown route through the forest. Fantastic ride though and didn't see anyone else in all the time I was out. Will have to find an opportunity to do the whole of the ride another time...

Thanks again for the local knowledge.

Tipps