Brechfa Run 18th April 2009

Cabbage kindly invited me along to a ride over towards Brechfa, trails on the way, trail there and trails back

We all met up at the Cabbage patch at 9am Sunday morning

Attendees were Cabbage (DR350), Jay (XR650), Wide (XR400) and myself (Yamaha Tricker)
I looked like a midget amongst them :), lucky I had my Tricker to make me look bigger

Ready for the off


One of the first lanes we came to the guys hadn't ridden before but I had, it was a lane I discovered several years ago whilst on a reccy for the TBM "Doing the Rounds" feature called the "Brechfast Run"
It clearly hadn'r been used by anyone for many years, it was overgrown and washed out though on the reccy we did attempt it but several of the guys with me were all on big DS bikes (F650 Dakar etc) so we got as far as the drop off and went back up
I warned the guys on Sunday and let them know I was well up for it and they decided they were too
Even the gulley leading down to the drop was a struggle, not so much for the Tricker but the big lads were really having a tough time of it, I got to the drop and waited, camera in hand.





Ah, here they come


Cabbage


Cabbage again


Jay



After Jay helped me get the Tricker down the biggest drop, I stood by with the camera again
The drop-off was between 4 and 5ft down onto a very sliipery slate slope to another searies of smaller drops, nowehere near enough room to try a fancy "blip the throttle" drop off as you'd just end up in a heap at the bottom of the lot of 'em and if you was really unlucky you'd slide all the way down to the 30ft drop into a waterfall

Next down was Wide






Crickey, I was sweating just watching those big fellas lug the bikes down






The ultimate drop if you decided to be clever






Down at the bottom, around a hairpin was a small (ish) river crossing, though Jay had gone down whilst I waited for the others at the top
I could hear Jay was having a little trouble crossing on his big red thumper (XR650)
We rode down to see that he'd made it across but he managed to find all the big rocks under the water, the centre of the river was too deep to cross so we had to skirt round then cross, with much hilarity from Cabbage and Wide (see video), the Tricker had no trouble at all, just floating over the submerged rocks

Onto the next lane and anothe small stream crossing, followed by a loose loamy climb

Here's Jay and Cabbage watching in amazement as Wide attempts to ride past my parked and nicely clean Tricker, getting stuck and virtually burying my poor bike under a mud shower
Oh well, it's gonna need a wash later anyhoos


Further on and in the Brechfa Forrestry now after several more cracking lanes
Srtill very wet on the ground even after some stunning weather here

Here's Jay blaming a tree for his very funny off, damn he was fast to get up, didn't have a chance to get a piccy of him flailing around on the floor


It wouldn't be the last tree to jump out and swipe someone off their bike either
I lost count of jay's off's for the day, Wide wasn't far behind him either

Dropped down into Abergorlech for rereshments and a rest


Headed south now covering some more cracking lanes

Next lane was another I warned them about but fair play they were up for it
This is another discovery on the reccy ride but it was completely overgrown on a teep hill of slate covered in loose loamy crap
Red rag to a bull in other words, so up we went

Jay getting a helping hand from Wide

(see video for the rest of this lane)

One of the planned lanes, obviously hasn't been used for many years, but we can't either




Ha, everyone had fallen off at least once, except for me
Oh I spoke too soon
I tried going flat out across a rock strewn field, don't ask why as you couldn't ride it even slowly without hitting rocks, some little some very large, but I was bored and the inevitable spectacular off ensued
Must have been the best one of the day, good solid impact on bike and a good solid impact when my body hit the rocky deck
no damage to me as usual, not even a bruise, the forks got twisted in my yokes but nothing else
Woohoo, been a while since I had a good off to write about

Took in a few more but it was now nearly 7pm and time to head home
Just time for a couple more pics





Had a fantastic day, many thanks to Jay for guiding and to Cabbage and Wide for just being there
Cheers guys

Brechfa Run Video

Excellent report Cupid, thats one hell of a step.
Cheers Ben

These Welshmen are well into the hardcore riding.

Well done chaps. I wouldn't have even attempted most of your route.

Nice report.

Cheers guys

Funny Reggie cos during the Touratech weekend I took some guys off-road, one of them actually cried

Mornin' Cupid,

was that due to laughter or pain?

Sweet pics and excellent report Cupid. Now I'll watch the vid....

It was pain Reggie
The guy binned it and thought he had broken his neck, his neck was just bruised from the bars hitting it

Took 2.5 hours to cover about 5 miles, then they'd had enough and we had to ride back via the tarmac


Fair play to them, they were all up for it despite ny warning them there wasn't any really easy big bike trails around here

Hi Cupid,

rather them than me!