Time Off: Foreign Travel: Geared Up for Some Mountain Success

IT’S easy keeping up with an Olympic gold medal-winning pursuit cyclist. You just have to make sure he’s on a heavy mountain bike instead of his usual ultra-light carbon fibre racer, then make him ride up steep Welsh mountain slopes.

Unfortunately, my trip out with Chris Hoy also involved coming back down some new, fast and rocky mountain bike tracks – and he lost me again there.

Still, I was pleased with my first attempt at off-road biking with the aptly (very aptly in my case) named tyred-out, based in Penmachno, near Betws-y-Coed, where Pete Gallimore and wife Tam run courses for all abilities on the demanding slopes of the Glasgwm valley.

Our group started the big day with a bit of off-road driving to get to the base at Plasglasgwm.

We were lucky to be equipped with the latest pounds 27,325 BMW X3 2 litre diesel 4×4, complete with BMW’s own mountain bikes which lock away securely on the in-car bike rack, a sensible option if you’ve just paid pounds 1,800 for the privilege of owning the bike to match the car.

That level of security, combined with the car’s poise on and off- road makes it ideal for the weekend warrior.

With the bikes firmly strapped in, we hammered over forest tracks, having a great time throwing the cars about. They handle superbly and even driving in a blinding cloud of dust I felt confident of the car’s ability to cope with anything that cropped up unexpectedly.

Over dinner at the stunning Bodysgallen Hall the night before the ride, our group had all been quietly confident of our chances against Chris – not that it was a competitive event of course – because after all, he was used to the pampered environment of a smooth wooden track. But confidence had slipped slightly when he told us how he started cycling on a BMX and worked his way up through mountain biking to road and track work.

The little confidence we had left evaporated completely when he emerged in his Great Britain team strip and we saw the power evident in those legs. So it definitely wasn’t competitive then.

Then the hard work began. The bikes come with full suspension, which you can lock to keep it firm while going uphill so you don’t waste valuable energy bouncing the bike around, and release for the downhill sections. And we certainly needed it.

The new single tracks are alarmingly narrow and steep, cut into the side of the hills.

We hurtled over slabs, boulders and logs, seemingly spending more time flying through the air than on the ground. As trees and rocks flashed by, inches from my head and almost too fast to react to, the ground plunged away and only the adrenaline kept me on the track – that and a very effective set of disc brakes.

The bikes, which seemed heavy when slogging uphill, really came into their own on the tracks, the suspension absorbing the worst of the jarring, and the balance and stability restoring some of that lost confidence, although I never did master hopping round the sharp hairpins.

The tracks in the Glasgwm valley are in the Snowdonia national park but are owned and maintained by the local community in conjunction withthe park and forest authorities. They are part of a growing network of trails providing a fantastic playground for mountain bikers.

And having felt the exhilaration of racing down them, exhausted, yet as wide awake and buzzing as I’ve ever been, I know why more and more people are getting on their bikes and hitting the trails.

Now all I need to do is get saving for an X3 and matching bike and I’ll never use the roads again TravelTipsJulian Wellen was biking with tyred-out which offers one and two-day courses. For more details contactwww.tyred-out.com or call 01690 760 181. n Julien stayed at Bodysgallen Hall near Llandudno. Contact www.bodysgallen.com or call 01492 584466. n For more information on the BMW X3, visit www.bmw.co.uk or call in at your local BMW dealer