Has anyone been to a trail centre recently?

[Chris71]

This morning I passed half a dozen roads that were closed off due to flooding, one of which had a car submerged up to its windscreen a hundred yards down from the barricade.

Strangely enough, that got me thinking about riding. All the local (natural) trails are practically impassable at the moment. But assuming you could actually get to them, would the man-made trails at places like Cwmcarn and Bike Park Wales still be rideable in this weather? Has anyone been out to a trail centre in the last few weeks to see how they've stood up?

[P-Jay]

All the South Wales ones are open, to be frank the amount of rain we've had recently hasn't been that much of a nightmare on anything but the newer trails - so Penhydd is really muddy in parts, so is BPW and the new bits of Cwmcarn and White's but for the most part it's draining as normal, once they're bedded in completely (needs a summer to really bake them) they're almost impervious to rain - I've ridden sections of trail that had formed streams 4-5" deep, but the trail underneath was still fine.

The biggest issue is fallen trees, but they seem to be able to clear them the same day / next day and you can always get around them, even if it's on foot.

If you're on Facebook or Twitter like/follow 'MTB Ranger South Wales' or 'Bob' to his mates, well I guess you can work out what he does for a living but he does a great job of reporting about the centres.

Sadly this weather has pushed back the opening of the new trails at Cwmcarn and Afan by a week, was meant to be middle of next week.

Edited by P-Jay on Friday 7th February 11:09

[neenaw]

Went to Swinley earlier this week.
It was a waste of time! The trails that weren't closed due to flooding or trees being down on them were just horrible, muddy, boggy messes. I won't be heading back there for a while until it dries out.
Luckily there's a couple of areas nearby which drain a bit better so I'll be giving them a try.