I tackled Cycling UK’s epic Traws Eryri mountain bike route—now I’m answering their official FAQs from firsthand experience. No fluff, just honest insights on terrain, logistics, and challenges for riders considering this Welsh adventure.
Cycling UK Website – https://www.cyclinguk.org/routes/long-distance/traws-eryri
IG – https://www.instagram.com/the_muddy_cyclist/
Strava – https://www.strava.com/athletes/32671435
00″00 Intro
00:33 What does Traws Eryri mean?
00:45 How do I get there, can I leave my car?
1:36 How long does it take?
2:12 What’s the best bike?
2:28 Can you ride it on a gravel bike?
3:42 How difficult is it?
4:23 Accommodation. Guided Ride?
4:33 Can you ride in either direction?
5:10 Is it signposted?
5:56 Bonus Question. The weather
So last summer me and my buddies did the stunning 200 kilometer mountain bike route called Trrow Erie through the heart of Snowonia in Wales. Today I’m going to answer off the most frequently asked questions from Cycling UK’s website. So if you’re planning a trip or just a little bit curious, stick around while I give you insights on the route from someone who’s ridden the whole thing. Anytime you see me in this get up looking hot, I am out on the South Downs in Sussex. All the other footage you’ll see will be from my trip doing that route across Wales. Now I believe it is pronounced trouse to rhyme with house eerie. I’m really not the best person to answer this question but I do know what it means. Eerie is Welsh for Snowonia and trouse means tran. So the English translation is transnonia. [Music] Well, the logistics of the ride were quite tricky. A lot of it will depend, of course, on where you live, but for us, we were all scattered across the southeast of England. So, what we did was convene in Mccundliff on day one. We left all our cars there, did the ride, and then on the last day when we were in Conway, we stayed there that night, and the following day, we got cabs are able to take bikes back to McCunlift. It was quite an expense. We did look at the trains, but it was a really difficult journey from Conway to Mccunift by train. But the car park where we left our cars was just a normal public car park in the town. And yeah, it was no problems. [Applause] [Music] Now, this is a really good question. How long is a piece of string really? There’s a couple of factors here. One, how fit you are. And two, how much do you want to punish yourself? For our little group, we’re all in our 50s with various levels of fitness. We chose to do it over four days, four 50k days. And I have to say, the route does have a lot of climbing in it. And it didn’t feel like we were going easy on ourselves. I was pretty battered after some days, but I never felt we had taken on too much. It was manageable, but we felt like we’d been out for a good, decent ride each day. [Applause] [Music] There were six of us on our trip. Five of us were on hard tail mountain bikes and one of us was on a gravel bike. I’m actually on the bike now that I did the route on last year. Uh I’ve got a Trek caliber 9.7. But I think the real question here is can you do it on a gravel bike? Why don’t we hear it from the horse’s mouth? I did ask Murray who did the whole route on his gravel bike. I wouldn’t do it without some kind of suspension and I wouldn’t do it without big big tires. I say at times it was a advantage. Other times it was a bit more of a challenge. The one problem is the gearing on this did I had to really push it a lot on those on those there’s some very steep sections of gravel and tarmac and you need you need what you guys a lot of road wasn’t it first day was wasn’t it and like this morning perfect bike for those windy little lanes lake quarry as well oh yeah that was great how was your suspension and your uh oh it saved me on the made big you know on a lot of the the smaller stuff Oh wow yeah yeah it made a big difference. Well, for what it’s worth, and I didn’t do the route on a gravel bike, but I have done the whole route. I would say that yeah, you could do it on a gravel bike. I was quite surprised the amount of times when gravel bike was probably the best option, but there will be some gnarly sections where you’re probably going to have to push. But I’m quite surprised for Cycling UK’s advice on this one. I would say, yeah, gravel bikes an acceptable choice. [Applause] [Music] Well, this is another question that’s maybe relative to your fitness, but I can talk to you about the terrain and uh it’s varied. It’s got lots of off-road gravel, but does have quite a lot of road, more than I was expecting, particularly in the early part of the ride. For someone who lives in the south of England where we don’t have massive hills, I thought it was pretty tough. There was a lot of climbing. So yeah, I don’t think it’s really tough, but it’s not an easy ride. I wouldn’t recommend it for someone who never done a trip before. [Music] I’m going to leave this question and that question for you to check out on the Cycling UK website because they’re in a much better position to answer it than me. And I’m going to move on to this one. Well, the short answer is yes. Of course, you can ride the route in either direction. There is nothing stopping you doing that. The recommendation is south to north, but if you wanted to do it north to south, why not? All I’d say is though, beware of cyclists coming in the opposite direction because that’s where most of them are going to come from, and you’re much more likely to get a headwind or a partial headwind if you’re going north to south. The prevailing direction of the wind in that part of the country is a southwesterly. So, if you’re going in that direction, the wind’s less likely to be favorable for you. [Music] Sadly, that’s a no, but it would have been nice if it was signposted. But on the Cycling UK website, there is a GPX file that you can download. There’s quite a few of us who had bike computers. We didn’t have any trouble really with the route, but we did take the odd wrong turn in, but it was probably more our fault than anything wrong with the file. and we’ve gone the wrong way. Even though we’ve all got garbings, we also had paper maps as well, just as a backup. Navigation was fine if you had a bike computer. If you’re doing it by map, that’s going to be very, very slow. So, load the route up onto your phone or your bike computer if you want an ease of navigation. [Music] Well, we went in summer to try and get good weather where we thought it might be warm, but oh my god, it was very, very wet and I was so cold cuz I am I am shaking. I’m shivering. My advice would be plan for the weather. It is changeable. Can be very windy and very wet all year round. Well, thank you for watching. Please put your questions down in the comments below. I’ll also link the videos for when I actually rode the route down in the description as well. You can follow my adventures there. It’s quite an epic trip. A lot went on. But thank you for watching and I’ll see you on the next one. [Music]