Bike Park Wales is a frankly brilliant, downhill orientated, trail centre in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. It’s about an hour and a half from Swindon and a top day out.
Only a few years old, Bike Park Wales is the brainchild of Rowan Sorrell (who owns the Back on Track trail making company) and his friends, who sought to create the UK’s first professional bike park. Charging a fee to ride was a relatively new concept over here, but by ploughing all the money back into the trails, it absolutely works and has created an amazing venue.
You’ll pay £6 for entry to the park and the uplift is extra and you’re normally looking at £30 (depending on the day of the week), but its well worth it. The facilities are top notch – a bike shop and bike hire, excellent café, workshop and bike wash. You even get your picture taken by Airshotz.co.uk , which you can buy online afterwards for a very reasonable £3. The uplift is slick as anything, which helps you get the most out of your day. Top tip is to talk to the driver on your way up – they live and breath the park and are full of good advice.
Don’t let the “downhill oriented” description put you off if you’re not a downhiller. I confess to being nervous the first time I went, but there’s no reason to be. There are trails for absolutely all abilities, but you have a bus to drive you to the top of the hill each time – brilliant!
There are nearly 30 trails now (ok, 1 is a climb!), with BPW aiming to add at least 1-2 each year. So what are they like?
The Blues
First up the Blue trails, which is where most people will (and should!) start. These are all flowing, smooth trails. Everything is rollable and manageable for most people, as long as you match your speed to your ability. Crank up the speed and the difficultly increases, but take your time and build up and you’ll have a great time.
This year has also seen the opening of a new blue – Terry’s Belly – and it’s a cracker! Even if you normally turn your nose up at Blues you should enjoy this one. Is lovely flowing berms all the way, but there are loads of poppy jumps all over the places. You can roll them if you’re a newbie or hop around like a jackrabbit! Lots of them are designed so you can jump little or big too – it’s a total playground.
The Reds
These crank things up a bit, with lines like Vicious Valley introducing drops and bigger jumps, like the A470, which is just a big jump line. The trails have “qualifiers”, which are an obstacle at the start designed to show what’s in store. These are actually inline with the hardest feature of the trail, so if you can do the qualifier, you’ll breeze the rest.
The Blacks
Now things crank up a notch! The qualifiers on most a gap jumps and fairly big ones. They’re slightly disingenuous to be honest – there are gap jumps on the blacks, but you can go around them if you like. If you’re finding the Reds straight forward, have a crack at a black – you’ll need some technique, but you don’t have to be a pro and there’s some proper fun to be had 🙂
What bike do I need?
Ok, its gravity orientated, not a full out and out downhill park. BPW recommend a 140-160mm travel full sun, but also say you can ride bits of the park on any bike. I’d agree with that – a trail hardtail would be fine for most of the runs (you’ll just need new teeth after blacks like Deep Navigation), but 140mm travel full sus is pretty spot on. Don’t forget you can rent a bike too, including some very tasty big travel Treks.
Do I need a full face helmet?
You must wear a helmet in the park, but there are no restrictions on what type of helmet. I’ve ridden there with both and was fine with an open helmet, although if you’re new to some of the larger drops you might want to think about going full face!
Book ahead!
Final point is you need to book the uplift online and you need to do it early! Testament to the quality of the park, the uplift tickets sell very quickly (especially for weekends). As such the books are only open for 3 months at a time, but you can pick a date and then be ready for the rush to book on the morning 3 months before hand – just make sure you’re quick off the mark if you want a weekend 🙂
Link – Bike Park Wales
