{"id":4529,"date":"2015-10-06T22:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T21:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=4529"},"modified":"2022-04-11T16:43:08","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T15:43:08","slug":"blaenau-funstiniog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/blaenau-funstiniog\/","title":{"rendered":"Blaenau FUNstiniog"},"content":{"rendered":"

James doesn’t like surprises, but he perked up when we pulled in to Antur Stiniog<\/a> on Thursday and I revealed that we had downhill bikes booked for the day, along with a full uplift (where a minibus and trailer take you and your bikes back to the top of the hill after each run).<\/p>\n

The weather played along nicely, and we were soon filled with trepidation at the top of the hill. A tentative first run had me wondering what on earth I’d let myself in for, since everything was horrifically bumpy even on these new-fangled bikes with 8″ of front and rear travel.<\/p>\n

\"What's

What’s not to like about this? \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2015<\/p><\/div>\n

By halfway down I was starting to enjoy myself, and the sheer joy of reaching the bottom and just dumping the bike on a trailer to get straight back to the top is indescribable.<\/p>\n

\"Full-face,

Full-face, it must be serious. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2015<\/p><\/div>\n

There was no stopping us after that, and – mercifully – no crashes (although we did both end up in ditches at separate points through over-enthusiasm). We stuck to the two blue runs; I think we’d happily attempt some red now, but by the time our confidence had built sufficiently we were too tired to contemplate anything too technical!<\/p>\n

\"James

James was never in front for long – very soon he was *miles* in front. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2015<\/p><\/div>\n

With only a brief lunch stop, we were both flagging by run number nine. Halfway down run number ten we stopped for a chat and both confessed that we were too knackered to hold on any longer. It’s far more physical than I remember back in the day…<\/p>\n

\"The

The view across Blaenau from the top of the runs. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2015<\/p><\/div>\n

So, ten runs in a day with no uphill pedalling isn’t a bad tally. The Nukeproofs we hired were exceedingly capable, so I’d highly recommend it to anyone who fancies a mess about on some proper bikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James doesn’t like surprises, but he perked up when I revealed that we had downhill bikes booked for the day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1129,780,393,858,276],"class_list":["post-4529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoors","tag-antur-stiniog","tag-dh","tag-downhill","tag-mountain-biking","tag-riding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}