When you're cooped up in an office working long and hard on a new website you've got to make sure you don't lose site of why you're doing it.
We also need to create some ride itineraries for the website, so that you've got some ideas to get you started planning your own Welsh trip.
Well that was certainly enough of an excuse for going out and checking how the best trails at all the
MBWales centres and a few of the
bases were running a couple of weeks ago.
Time being as limited as usual though we had an extra challenge element. Could we do 200km of premium Welsh singletrack trails in two days and create the Ultimate MTB Weekend template in the process?
A few calls to the usual suspects and we're rolling into the
Cwm Carn car park at 7am on Wednesday morning. Neil Arnold from Hope technology is already there having driven down the previous night, Mike Wilkens (organiser of the Merida Marathon series) is next to arrive, then Russ Burton (designer of
Cwm Carn's XC trail and most of the
Afan trails now turned photographer), Alex Metcalfe (Gore Bike Wear) and our reserve driver Kieran Foster pitch up. Turns out the lads from Mojo suspension just down the road are too busy to make it, but we bumped into
Cwm Carn local Carl yesterday and he's turned up for a quick blast before work.
Despite the two long days ahead it really is a quick blast too, thanks to Mike's singlespeed pace setting on the opening climb. One of the first proper sunny days of summer is breaking through too and with the superb flowing trails drawing us on we just can't help pinning it around the whooping, swooping trails until we're suddenly back at the vans.
It's been a fantastic, effortlessly fast way to start the two days and spirits are definitely on a real high.
We might even make it round our mammoth trip without too much misery and murderous slog if the trails carry on running as well as this.
Right now thought the visitor centre is still shut so it's down the road to Morrisons (other retailer based breakfasts are available) in Risca for breakfast and essential provisions. Time wasted but bellies full we gallop west on the M4 as fast as the 50mph zones will allow. We swing north through the valleys to Glyncorrwyg to meet the boys from SRAM who are over from Europe to showcase their new 2009 stuff to us magazine testers on our home turf.
The new forks and brakes looked good sat in a Swansea Travel Inn conference room yesterday (it's all glamour!) and as we thread our way up the opening climb of
White's Level the theory certainly seems to add up on the trail. It's the rock sections, swooping berms and twisting boardwalks across the top that really start the testing process though and Elmar from SRAM is loving it. As part of his job he gets to ride all over the world spreading the word for Rock Shox, Truvativ, Avid and SRAM, but he's blown away by the quality of the riding here. In fact according to the UK SRAM guys he was riding 6-8 hours a day on the
Afan trails for the whole week and he's still going on about it a month later.
Back to our raiding party and things are still going very well for us too, the new Energy section is a definite change in trail style as the XC flow swaps to big freeride style ramps, berms and tabletops, but a bit of variety keeps us totally focused. There's still no crashes, no mechanicals and no other niggles to slow us down as we charge through the dust clouds and drop offs of the final descent either.
The riding's been so good that even with 40km behind us already we'd be really dissapointed if we weren't going straight to another centre after this. Determined not to get too comfy in the far too tempting Drop Off cafe above Skyline cycles at the visitor centre we jump into the vans and head west again for
Brechfa and Abergorlech.
It's definitely a bit quieter in each van though as the riding starts to take it's toll and the floor starts to pile up with pistachio nut shells, sandwich wrappers and energy bar debris. Halfway through the first afternoon and with 160km still to go things are looking a little daunting to say the least!
Tune in next time to see whether we're still going for it at Gorlech or the wild ride of west Wales is when it all starts to go wrong for our gallant team of idiots!