CWMCARN
6th April 2007
I had been meaning to ride Cwmcarn for sometime now but for one reason or another I never had the time to plan this trip until now. I decided that I wanted to try out a downhill course and this would be the ideal place to do it due to the locality of it to me. With the centre only being a 30 minute drive from Bristol, this would be suitable for a quick day trip from south Somerset.
On arrival we were greeted with a brimming car park packed full of mountain bikes and riders, we were lucky to get a space and it was only just after 10am so I think it is recommended to get here early on a weekend or bank holiday. The mass of helmet clad riders preparing to launch themselves down the course was a sight to behold, I never realised how popular this genre of mountain biking was until now.
The weather was glorious and riders could be seen hurtling down the course already and this only inspired me more to get going. Now, here was the first problem, with the bike barely of the carrier I was suited and primed for action! Sadly my bike was not! On mounting the Slayer I clipped in as I rolled down the slight incline but nearly came a cropper when I went to pedal back up again….. Just for the hell of it my freewheel decided to play up not engage when I put some power into the pedals. Oh Shit, all was not lost though because no sooner had it spun up it engaged and off I went.
The freewheel presented me with problems throughout the day because it was slipping every time I put power through the pedals on the climbs but thankfully I managed to skip around this by pushing up the most steeply of ascents and by lightly applying power on the easier of climbs.
We decided that we wanted to do the cross country course and then try out the black run if we get time. Within minutes of leaving the car park we were climbing and I had been warned that the majority of the early stages of this route could be challenging if you are not great at ‘going up’ hills but thankfully we both got our heads down and kept the pedals spinning.
We managed to go slightly astray and missed the fantastic section that skirts around the route because we headed straight for the downhill course. We mainly stuck to the road for most of the ride as we wanted to miss the last batch of riders going down after they had been dropped by the uplift so that we could enjoy the course to it’s full without worrying about other riders slowing us up or by wanting to overtake.
Once we got to the start of the DH course we took a well earned breather because we had been climbing for sometime. The entrance was well marked with a wooden cyclist holding on to a real bike frame and shocks, this in itself surprised me because where I come from that would have been stolen by now and all you would see would be the charred remains of what was a wooden statue of a man!
I decided to lead the way with Lee following on behind as he was a little uncomfortable with leading and he did not want to hold me up. The first stages were superb with fast flowing switchbacks and neatly placed boulders to navigate around or for the big boys to jump. I soon got into a decent rhythm and my speed was increasing all the time, I had a moment on one section as it became massively rocky and I scrubbed to much speed off prior to arriving to it so had to dismount.
I was soon back on track and was recklessly bouncing off everything that came at me but this was fantastic fun and I enjoyed every minute of it. Once I arrived at the road section half way down, I pulled over to wait for Lee, at first I was quite concerned because I could not see him but he soon came into view with the biggest grin I have ever seen on him.
The next section takes in the underpass and I took this part relatively slowly as I did not know what to expect but next time I think I will push myself harder here because you get a good natural line that carries speed to the next off camber right hander. I nearly had another off at this point as my wheels decided to argue with each other and go their separate ways! My front wanted to go down and my rear fancied straight on so something had to give so I desperately tried to unclip before all hell broke loose. Thankfully I stayed on but the image of earth, sky was apparent for the next few corners at least.
I stopped at the next road section before the drop off to wait for Lee and it was here that we decided to miss out the last bit and climb back up along the road to the Twrch Trail that we missed first time around, and are we glad we did, a superb fast flowing trail that hugs the side of the hill all the way back down to the car park. I managed to pop my inner tube again at this point with a snakebite before the final descent to base camp so this hampered us for 5 minutes or so whilst I changed the tube.
Overall the whole day was a success, fantastic weather, views, people and course, the only problem is, I want to go back again, again and again and with a different bike! Yes, I knew this would happen but I am thinking about trading the good old faithful Slayer in for a more aggressive bike for down hilling and general freeriding! I want the SX trail.... I knew this would happen, as soon as I do some decent DH courses that I would want to concentrate more into this genre.
I recommend anyone to come to Cwmcarn to try out the DH course and to ride the XC trail, it is a good all rounder route with plenty to do for all riders of all capabilities.
Chris Paul
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