Fanylion Mountain Bike Team
Official site of the Fanylion Mountain Bike Team. Includes mountain bike ride guides, gear reviews, bike maintenance, team reports and rider profiles of the Fanylion Racing Team.
Coed-Y-Brenin & Gwydyr Forest
March 18, 2006, Wales
I had a dream
As I sat there glued in front of the TV on Friday night, the weather forecast looked good. Helen Willets from the BBC weather centre announced a cold but sunny weekend over Wales and this included the micro-climate of CyB. Could this be true I thought as I turned the TV off and marched upstairs to bed and dreamt of warm summer days, steak , midges and single-track?
7:30am and the alarm woke me up in a mass sweat, I had just dreamt that we had ridden in bright, warm sunshine with baggies on, short sleeve tops, and our water laden camelbacks were empty due to the heat. As I frantically drew back the curtains it all became apparent… it was cloudy but dry and it wasn’t raining!
8:30am prompt (no FaffTM) and I am on the road to rendezvous at Chester Services with the three riders (and Chris, a potential new member) who had duly confirmed they were riding on my “organised” ride of 06 because Team Hodgson is taking a back seat (well almost, but that is another story in itself), due to impending baby (not him, his wife Ellie). Mastiles, Shack and Downhill Maniac all arrived with almost military precision and we set off for Wales. A quick en–route phone call to Jesus informs me he is “already there” and “While you boys are getting your shit together, I am gonna do the Red Bull route”. For a split second I believed him.
11am we arrive at the Mecca that is CyB. We fill our Camelbacks, assemble our bikes, get changed, greet Jesus, throw the obligatory pre-ride insults at each other (at which point, newbie Chris starts having serious doubts about who he is going to be riding with), take the obligatory pre-ride photo and hit the 22km MBR trail which Chris informed me started off a “bit to fast” for his liking as he was used to a more steady pace with the guys he rides with back home. The MBR route was as good as always and took us past the impressive new visitors centre. Some fantastic technical sections were ridden that you “forget” when you haven’t ridden it for a while and especially the Pink Heifer section which was rooty and well washed out. Chris crashed twice, Shack the once whilst everyone else got round unscathed in a respectable riding time of 1 hr 37 mins. RSpkT!
We headed back to the cars for a quick bite to eat and suddenly Downhill Maniac became rather queer and headed off to the warmth of the café to drink tea, smoke and eat cake rather than get his adrenalin rush from the 11km Red Bull route. Mastiles made a stunning start, snapping his chain as he went under the start gate, I had frostbite in my left big toe on the first ascent to the Heart of Darkness section. Shack punctured twice, Chris fell off again on the Snap Crackle and Pop rock gardens (this section still get’s me going every time, oh err!) and in 1 hr 15mins we were all back at the cars ready for a brew in the café. All I can say I was truly disappointed at the service offered and I left my brew in disgust - you see, instant coffee with UHT milk just isn’t the same as the filter coffee they offered in the past. Let’s hope the new centre is a bit more up to scratch!
Jim Bowen
We arrive in Criccieth; Jesus + Wife head off to their “140 quid a night Hotel” in a nearby town of some description and the rest of us book into the Marine Hotel for a quick SSS, then hit the bar. Drinks flow and so does the banter. In a bizarre discussion of who is the fittest rider, Shack announces that Boyband; ex Para is the fittest, to which Mastiles (clearly not under the influence of alcohol abuse at this moment) replies; “he’s an ex Pirate?” My how we laughed at this unusually whittery outburst and proceeded to drink more beer. Our stomachs needed food so we head off to a local restaurant for steak and chips ™, beer and wine. The quality of the food was excellent compared to the fare normally offered at the regular haunt of the Prince of Wales. We head there anyway for a few pints but the 9 pm disco made us cringe so we head back to the Hotel and to bed (so we thought). As we stroll into the hotel we are greeted by a group of Irish girls, one of the girls parent’s and the barman playing darts and in a “Let’s see what you could have won” Bullseye moment we take them on only to be beaten at 501, Killer and acquire some possible new Team names in the form of; Shack (Skater Boy), Chris (Gay Boy) although I must add that this was only due to a rather gay jumper he was wearing (well it was) not because he was acting in an unusually gay manner, Downhill Maniac (Merry from Lord of the Rings!) Mastiles (Harry Potter) and myself; well they actually called me Sheldon. And on that bombshell 1am chimed and we all headed off to bed.
Pennies from heaven
Sunday dawned a beautiful, crisp, blue, sunny day with a hint of spring in the air but we all felt worse for wear after the night before. A very disappointing ‘fried’ breakfast (which was more ‘warmed in the sun’) and couple of coffees brought us round. We headed off to Gwydyr Forest in nearby Betws-y-Coed for more enjoyment.
After plenty of FaffTM and rumours from Mike hew wasn’t going to ride (Editors Note: I was winding him up, really I was) we all set off at a decent pace given the previous night’s shenanagins but the climb from the Pigs Might Fly section caught us all out due too our hangovers. After re-grouping at Blue we hit the Pandora’s Rocks section and the Dragons Tail gave us the rock thrills we crave. We all suffered slightly, I had major front derailleur problems, Mastiles looked rough, and Jesus was on form whilst Shack, Downhill and Chris rode off their hangovers to the full. The finale of the Marin Trail is just one of the best in Britain; it just blew us all away and with massive grins on our faces and 2 1/2 hrs and 25km of riding nailed; the weekend was over, but what a weekend it was.
Again the mighty Fanylion faction had ridden hard, crashed, ate steak, drank, had great weather, acquired a possible new team member, abused ourselves and our bikes but I think the idea of having a Fanylion Darts team is out of the question. Well… for now anyway.
Team Starkey,
OUT.
Riders present
Starkey
Mastiles
Shack
Downhill Maniac
Jesus
Chris
Enjoyment level
Jim Bowen