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Coed y Brenin Skills Area 13/08/2013

A new skills area (Y Ffwondri) has opened at Coed y Brenin Mountain Bike Centre. Adjoining the car park the Skills Area is made up of four zones: Training, Singletrack, Freeride and Drop-off. Download a pdf leaflet.

The Training Zone with info panels on essential mountain biking skills is a good place to start if you're new to the activity. The Singletrack Zone with four grades of short trail sections, from green (easy) through to black (severe), will give riders a good idea of what to expect in terms of technical difficulty on the similarly colour-graded forest trails.       

Natural Resources Wales Mountain Bike Ranger, Andy Braund, said: "The most common biking question we get at Coed y Brenin is what trail should we do and secondly what do the grades mean? Now we can tell them to head up to the single track zone in the Skills Area where there they can self-assess and get a good idea about which of our forest trails will suit their ability."

Andy added: "Since trails such as the MBR and the Beast in the forest were built, the skills of youngsters has risen dramatically and we've tried to reflect that in some of the challenging features in the Singletrack Zone. There are a couple of drops on the black for example that you can't simply ride up to and roll-over. You have to get a bit of air to avoid catching the bottom bracket. Wherever you see a skull and cross-bones sign just ahead of a feature you might want to stop and inspect it first time round."  

The Drop-off Zone features a natural rock slab known as the Lemming Stone - the name says it all and to access this area you have to be happy riding the red singletrack. A Freeride Zone (jump/pump track) has a lot of fun features including table tops, rollers, eight bermed turns and step ups - all of which can be rolled over if you're getting the hang of it.

The Skills Area and the MinorTaur Trail were funded as part of the Eryri Centre of Excellence with E4G (Environment for Growth) funding. Four years in the planning and nine months in construction, the Skills Area will only further enhance the reputation of Coed y Brenin as a top-class mountain bike centre. After all, Coed y Brenin, is where purpose-built way marked mountain bike trails all started.








Topic: Coed y Brenin Mountain Bike Centre, Ffwondri Skills Area, Mountain Biking in Wales.






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