Seeing as we've built a brand new site we thought we'd best provide some help guides on how it works and what some of the words and sections are all about.
Here's our first lesson which hopefully covers all the basics you'll need to get started.
First up, that nice join the dots map under the dragon in the top right corner of the homepage is cleverer than you might think. Scroll your mouse over it and each dot will be revealed as a pop up intro to what you'll find there in the real world, which hopefully makes basic navigation and planning multi centre trips a bit easier.
You'll also notice that the black dots show where the
'centres' are while green dots show the centrepoint
'bases'. Hang on though, what do we mean by
'centres'and
'bases'?
Well, at purpose built
'centres' you'll find a dedicated visitor centre with car parking, cafe, toilets (and sometimes bike shop, bike wash, bike hire etc. too) with several wamarked trails leaving right from the site. If you've been to Coed y Brenin, Nant yr Arian, Cwm Carn or Afan you'll know what to expect.
The
'bases' are a new category that are a bit different. Basically they're an MTB hot spot with lots of local facilities, great trails (man made and natural) and a bike friendly attitude all in one small area - but not neccesarily on one site. Some of them - like Machynlleth and Betws y Coed - are based around a central town in an area that has both man made trails and loads of natural ones. Others are either bigger areas made up of lots of trails and villages - like the Brecons, Radnorshire, Elan Valley etc. - or a site like Gorlech (which will probably be a
'centre' soon) where there are several man made trails but no tea hut yet.
There are obviously loads of other areas of Wales with absolutely great riding too. For now we're concentrating on the ones that short circuit your route to a great ride with either waymarked trails or a ready made route pack.
That leads us to the last part of our first lesson; the
Trail Search box. The idea here is that you tick the boxes for exactly the riding you want, the distance you want, the facilities you want and the part of Wales you want and then hit the 'Submit button' and wait for us to serve up your ideal ride.
You'll need to know what each part means to get the best from it though, so here goes:
Trail grade: The colour you'll see on maps and signposts that represent the required skill level of the trail based on the official forestry comission guidelines. Click the ? icon for more detail.
Distance in km: Pretty self explanatory, but bear in mind most of these trails will give a much harder workout physically and mentally than your average local XC ride.
Facilities: Want everything within stumbling to in your socks reach? Tick "On Site". Don't mind pedalling a bit further or jumping in your car to get a coffee? Tick "Local".
Areas of Wales: We've probably been really flippant about geographical lines that people have been fighting bitterly over for centuries, bur far as we're concerned North is anywhere above Machynlleth and South anywhere below Llanwrytyd Wells.
That's hopefully enough for the first lesson anyway. If not you'll just have to
mail us and ask the questions yourself, as the weather is so good here right now we're off outside to play rounders instead.
See you out there.
MBWales.com