The Cambrian Trial

That time when we rode over Every Single Valley in Wales…

Tough but awesome: The Cambrian Trail

With the incredible summer weather set to continue for another week we set off for North Wales. Our aim: To ride as much of the Cambrain Trail as we were able to in a week.

The only source of info we could find was on this website, including the description: “The hardest unofficial coast-to-coast off road route in Wales. This is a serious route with a substantial amount of climbing and tracks of varying surfaces. Experience of riding challenging terrain over multiple days is essential.”

It sounded... Hard.

The intended route

We never intended to actually get to the end just to ‘see how far we can get before bailing’.

The gpx files claimed over 14,000m of climbing over the route. Can't be right, I thought that's far too much...

Naive, excited and clean: Here we are at the start

With very little planning (sometimes ignorance is best) we set off from Conwy at about 5pm thinking we’d get to Llyn Cowlyd for a wild camp it was only 35km away, this turned out to be something of an overestimate, and set the standard for the next week.

Stone Circles on Day 1

We were soon on what was to be one of many many hike a bike sections, the stunning views made up for it though. This was going to be an ace way to traverse Wales.

Stunning views over N. Wales coastline

After 3 hours we’d progressed about 20km, “I’m so tired" I whimpered, "can we camp soon?”. Given how dry it’s been finding a decent water source was one of the biggest challenges of this trip. Eventually we found a running stream for a quick wash before setting up camp.

Camp 1, slightly hampered by pylons, otherwise idyllic

I was a bit worried; day 1 was supposed to be our easy day and we'd both found it quite hard going. On day 2 we were on the go for over 10 hours, and we only made 68 km! I reminded myself we never planned to actually finish the route. 

Llyn Cowlyd, getting over that horizon line was a mission of a hike-a-bike

On day 3 we set up camp in one of the best wild camp spots I’ve found. Next to a reservoir, warm enough for swimming and a short climb up to sunset views over the Snowdon Massif, lovely 😊

I bet on a normal day this is a total marsh, but on this day it was the best wild camp + swim spot

Sunset Views over Snowdon

The days turned into a rhythm of rolling through the landscape punctuated by occasional cafe stops and hike a bike, as we progressed further south.

Caroline on one of the many trail centers we  passed through

We thought this was going to be a lovely single track section, it turned into a gorse ridden nightmare!
Top tip: Try not to fall off in a gorse bush

I imagine that normally a lot of the trail would be mostly bog, but because it's been so dry, we were lucky to find most everything ride-able, it did mean it was rather hot though...

I'm afraid I did ride in just a bra again; yes I'm an embarrassment to my friends. But I'd rather be comfortable than dignified

On day 4 I woke in the middle of the night with food poisoning. yuk. Fortunately by morning it had pretty much passed. I left behind a tidy pile of vom at the campsite as we set off. We decided to have an easier day, so rather than climb over the slopes of Cader Idris we took the coast road. It turned out to be an inspired decision, as it took us through Llwyngwril. The whole village has gone crazy for Yarnbombing, including Gwril the Giant. Surreal.

Gwril the Giant - Yarntastic
Detours for the win!

One of my favourite parts was the descent off of Diffwys, this was a long gentle ridge descent. The hike up to it, though I did not enjoy.

On the Diffwys ascent: This stone is a tribute to a Lady who was still loving this  hill at 84!  "Courage Traveller" I nearly cried. Pushing 20kg or so of loaded bike is hard.

Diffwys descent we came down that ridge on the left, it was ace 😊

As the days passed we inched our way further south, always climbing or descending, Wales does not do flat. I started to believe there really was 14,000m of climb on this route. We were also making progress, it started to become possible that we might make it to Worm's Head after all!

Actually this is quite a bit further than halfway, but who doesn't love a good road sign photo!

Most of the time it was pretty easy to see where we were supposed to go, (even if the going was tough). Occasionally though the paths were so indistinct as to not really be there at all. In these moments I was glad we live in an age of GPS, I would never have believed I was in the right spot if I'd been relying solely on a map and compass.

Bushwacking through knee-deep undergrowth (one of those if you didn't laugh you'd cry moments)

We were often following Roman roads, in particular the Sarn Helen trail through mid Wales. It's pretty obvious Romans didn't travel by bike.

Sarn Helen mosaic shortly before another 500m climb

Of course it wouldn't be a full Welsh experience if we didn't get caught in at least one down pour. Day 6 was a a test of how waterproof our gear was...

Day 6: riding in the rain, at least our kit stayed dry

On our penultimate night we were just over 100km from the end. Not so far away, but we'd not even managed a 90km day yet. Still the thought of getting to the end... Surely it could be done? We fueled up and got going.

After a 6 day drought, Caroline finally finds an avocado.

Mostly though, I fueled up on these, (side note M&M's are perfect chocolate for hot weather, the sugar capsule stops the melting chocolate going everywhere)

It was really hot on the last day and I was pretty exhausted. Leaving Swansea we even bumped into some other cycle tourers.

Making friends crossing the Neath

In order to get to Worm's head in time for sunset we bypassed the final off-road section and elected to batter on through the road. It was still rather undulating...

Almost there! the very final stretch of road.

Our strategy paid off though and we rolled into Worms Head around 8:30pm in time to catch some photos before sunset.

We Made It! Incredible.
7 days, 500 km and well over 10,000m of climb.
Tired and manky, we never planned to get this far...

Caroline scouted out a fantastic cliff-side spot for our final wild camp. (not going to lie, I was too exhausted to move). Tents pitched, dinner scoffed, I hit the Zzzz's.

Final camp spot, picturesque.

Since we didn't intend to reach the end we didn't have a plan for getting home from the Gower. This meant a 30km cycle to the nearest train station (but not before cafe stops and a cheeky sea swim).

Train Time: I felt sorry for the other people in the carriage, I smelt So Bad.

It was a great trip, Still can't believe we actually made it to the end, (even if we did take a few short cuts).

I'd definitely recommend the Cambrian Trial, if you're after a challenge, but don't underestimate it!

Sunset self timer fun,
The Cambrian Trail - what a trip