The Wall Trail at Afan features some of the best single track descents in the UK, this trail essentially traverses the North side of the Afan Valley on single track, varying from fast, open and flowing to tight, technical and rooty, in it's 13 mile length you will climb and descend around 1500ft, more than enough to test even the strongest legs and skills, so here is me, stepping up to the challenge again.
My day started at 5am, I quickly ate some breakfast and loaded the car, did not take long, I am no stranger to road trips so everything was ready to load, Afan is about 180 miles away from here so I found myself pulling over a few times for some coffee, nothing like a double espresso to wake you up and set you on the road again.
It took over 3 hours and several coffee's but I arrived in Afan, stepping out of the car I looked across the valley to the woods I would soon be riding in, damn it looked steep, I honestly thought I had bitten off more than I could chew especially with the recent poor weather, I had not come all this way to turn back now, I have ridden these trails a couple of times before so I at least knew what was coming.
The first part of the trail is pretty easy, just a gentle cruise up the fire road heading out towards the furthest point of the trail before heading up the climbs properly, thankfully the trail fairy's dive into the woods frequently and follow the contours up on the single track so you don't realize you are going up so much and it spices it up some too.
The view from one of the fire roads.
The start of the first bit of single track.
The recent rain had left much of the wooded single track quite slippery and for some one who is very out of practice this was quite amusing, picture if you will a cycling equivalent of Bambi on the ice, remember that one? Despite the damp I soon found myself settling in and riding pretty well and starting to make some progress.
One of several streams
Err I needed to stop and catch my breath......plus they looked cool and just so happened to be at the top of a horrible fire road slog.
Sadly the recent weather also meant that some sections were closed and a few diversions were in place, nothing major and the diversions were very nice and provided some views I would not have seen otherwise.
The start of trail 373, I love this part of the trail.
Me stopped at the bottom of section 373 for a break and an energy bar
The last decent to the fire road back to the car.
Well I hope you liked this entry, there was not as much video as I had hoped, but I did not press the start button hard enough for the middle two trail sections and the footage on the last descent is not great as the camera took a hit from a low hanging branch and was knocked out of place a little.
Looking back at this day I can say hand on heart it is the best birthday I have had in ages, I may have spent it on my own (well apart from the other riders I stopped and chatted with) but I spent it doing some thing I really love. It also has shown me how much I have grown as a person and a rider, that I am much stronger than I thought I was, yeah I may have walked short sections of the steeper fire road climbs but I managed the entire ride and would happily go again soon if I could.
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