A haven for riders Coed Y Brenin

The first dedicated mountain biking trail centre in the United Kingdom, it is renowned up and down the country in particular by two subsets of people: hikers and mountain bikers.

Coed y Brenin is a popular forest found deep within the Snowdonia National Park, near the market town of Dolgellau in Gwynedd, North Wales. Coed y Brenin – which in English translates roughly to “the King’s Trees”. There are a number of man-made single track courses through the woods, which vary somewhat in length; the shortest is 5 miles, while the longest is a formidable 23 miles long. There’s also one dual slalom course, known as the Minotaur. This intermediate course consists of two loops, one of which measures two miles and the other three.

Keen mountain bikers will enjoy taking on the black-grade Tarw, MBR and The Beast courses, which are ranked as “severe” in difficulty, while newcomers will prefer the novice (green-ranked) Afon. For those in the middle who are looking for a challenge, Temptiwr, Dragon’s Back and Cyflym Coch are all ranked as red, or “difficult”. Happily, all the trails are free to use, meaning you can spend the whole day racing through the trees without spending a penny.

There’s also Yr Ffowndri – the Foundry – which is especially designed for total newbies to the mountain biking scene. The facility offers a training zone to help you progress through the core riding skills and boost your confidence on two wheels, as well as three further zones that slowly ramp up the difficulty. And if you don’t have your own bike, no problem: Beics Brenin offer a “hire fleet” of cycles, and they’ll make sure you get the perfect-sized one based on your height.

Since 2006, there has been an impressive visitor centre on the site. Costing £1.6 million, it is mostly geared towards the mountain biking visitors, but with it came the addition of five well signposted hiking trails. There is also a lovely café, perfect for a spot of lunch to refuel after a morning spent hiking and biking.

Because it’s found right in the centre of the Snowdonia National Park, there’s a veritable bounty of other activities to do and places to visit in the vicinity. Once you’ve had your fill of Coed y Brenin, you can journey north to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where you can venture back down to earth via zip-lines into the abandoned slate mines, or you can go for a ride on the Ffestiniog Heritage Railway, which will take you comfortably along to Porthmadog.

The beautiful and bizarre village of Portmeirion is a short trip from there. This Italianate village was stylised after the Riviera, with a lovely sandy beach and some frankly strange architecture. The village could easily fill up a whole day itself, so why not stay in the area? We offer a number of self-catered cottages in Wales; click here to find out more information.