TRIP REPORT- Revolution Bike Park, North Wales
Situated in North Wales and running since 2011, Revolution Bike Park is a must for any riders wanting to test themselves and improve on skills and speed. We took a road trip with two Intense Carbine 29s and a Tracer 650, not a DH rig to be seen among our lot, I had been offered a choice of two DH bikes, but thought I’d run the bike I race.
Since the Atherton’s last film, this place is now famous around the world as the site where they ride their barmy quarry run, with jumps the size of houses, all obviously closed to the public. The Athertons were the originators, building tracks upon this Welsh forest hill, at the time living in the local village of Llangynog. The trail park was taken over by riders themselves, in the form of James, Tim and Susha, who run the whole shebang and do a great job too.
The tracks are basically a choice of three main ones; The red, single black and double black, with other little variants of line choice also to be found here and there, spicing things up.
The red route still has the second half under construction , so the current second half meets up with the black runs, but the top is so much fun on an Enduro bike, with a mass of man made mellow table-tops, doubles, step-ups and downs. The single black run consists of lots of steep, tricky, rooty natural lines, real testing, but mega-fun on the Enduro bike, tight turns are a-plenty as you work your way down to the eight foot board drop at the bottom. The double black shares the same two bottom half line choices as the single black, but after some great trail-type jumps at the very top, gets very gnarly and steep, with some big-assed drops, almost a tad too much for the light-weight short travel 29er. I have to admit I only ran the double black once all day!
All the trails meet up at the bottom, straight to the point of pick-up, where one of two Landrovers always seems to be there within ten minutes to shuttle ten riders and trailered bikes back up the short trip to the top. We were lucky enough to be there on a day in the presence of some of the UK’s top DH riders, led by none other than Santa Cruz’s Ratboy Josh Bryceland. They charge a reasonable 27.50 GBP per rider, with group bookings also taken, plus they slap on some BBQ style burgers and a nice hot brew for lunch.
For more info go to www.revolutionbikepark.co.uk
Words: Jim Buchanan Pics: Doc Ward
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