Hampshire Mountain Bike Ninja: Wales weekend 15th and 16th November 2014

It's been a while since my last post. A new job and only riding on my own meant that any write up or video would have been a bit on the dull side.

A trip to North Wales was a bit more interesting though, particularly as the Sunday ride was up Snowdon.

It was with a mix of trepidation and excitement that I signed up for the 3rd SELOC Snowdon mountain bike expedition. Would I be fit enough? Would the steep drops make me freeze in fear? Would sub 0 degree temperatures freeze me for real?

Arriving at the hotel after a 5 1/4 hour journey on the Friday, I was pleasantly surprised to find my budget £37 a night room (which included a full breakfast) was recently and nicely decorated and the staff were polite and efficient.

After an obligatory pint to start the Weekend, I went to bed to ensure I was fully refreshed to the challenge ahead.

After a decent cooked breakfast on the Saturday, having not made the mistake of ordering a full English breakfast in a Welsh hotel (like others in the room), I headed the 45 minutes to Coed-y-Brenin to meet up with the 3 Andys (AndrewF, AndyKay and worldwidewebs ). With little phone and internet signal it took us a while to find each other, despite www's very bright Cayman with the bike rack on the roof, but eventually AndrewF rounded us all up.

We elected to ride the 31k Red Dragon route (against my better judgement as I didn't want to completely wear out my old legs before the Snowdon climb in the morning). We did take the short cut though, which meant that I would still have some legs for the next day. The trails were good other than the big fireroad section.

For the Sunday main event there were just Andys F and K. After a sensible size breakfast we heading out from the hotel car park and very soon we began the start of the 3 hour climb. The hotel record board seemed to suggest that a sub 40 minute climb to the top was possible, with a total climb and decent in just over an hour. I'm sure without the bikes we would have been close to that time.

A mix of riding and pushing (More pushing for Mr F as his Orange was suffering from chain suck on his bottom ring).

The halfway point saw (felt) the wind get colder, up to then I had only been wearing a couple of bike jerseys. After wrapping up warmer we headed off again and joined the train track route.

Very close to the top the weather was still great and walkers told us the top was clear of cloud. Just after this we noticed an ominous white shape which appeared to be following us up the mountain. Despite our attempt to out pace the cloud, it beat us there..

Although the views were obscured to start with, it did clear in part and the views into and though the clouds were quite breathtaking.

We had decided to descend part of the route which was taken last year and then retrace out steps to take the ranger path which had been re surfaced. A very tricky initial part of the train saw much bike carrying and very slow progress, eventually we found a rideable trail, but after 200 descent we decided to turn back. The resulting climb took the last of my energy, leaving me struggling to climb the technical rocky path with a 32lb bike.

Back at the top we finally heading properly downhill with a very fast rocky decent with multiple lines, this then changed into a narrow trail with big loose rocks, lots of drops offs and tight steep corners with a sheer drop at tightest part of the bend. Hard work on the arms but it made all the climbing worth it.

From here the trails became less technical and after a final climb over a smallish hill we had the final descent down to Llanberis.

I managed to get a puncture as my tired body miss judged the hop over a drainage channel, landing on a sharp bit, a quick tube change though and it was back to the hotel.