Words by Meg Elliot, feature image by Jo Heard – @lifeinraw
There’s a small woodland behind a school in mid-Wales that is kind of mythic.
Rumour has it that the Athertons once dug up there; that Kaos Seagrave lapped some iteration of its trails before the jumps blew out and leaves scattered over it. Generations of school kids have dug in these woods – and now they’ve had a glow-up.
It’s late evening when I go up.
The instructions to get up to the revamped trails are sketchy at best; park next to Llanfyllin High School and they should be somewhere behind it. We get our bikes out of the van and are waved down by a boy on a rusty hardtail who gestures past the school gates. He’s wearing big green wellies, a skate helmet open at the chin and is flanked by a bespeckled older sister. They decide to guide us to the trails.
The ride up to the top of three graded routes is short and steep, with the two flow trails and one jump line zig-zagging down the small hill. Opened in the new year, the asphalt is pristine: compact and flowy.
The trails back here weren’t always as slick as they are today. Until last year, the area was cordoned off after ash dieback blighted the trees. Before that, generations of school kids had taken turns to build tracks and jumps here. One local rider, Twm Roberts, would build sections of trail during engineering lessons, staying late after school to dig. ‘It gave me an interest in bunking off school,’ he laughs, though the proximity of trails to school made riding more accessible: ‘because it was at school, you could just stay there.’
It’s one of a flurry of hot spring days, and the light is falling through the tree canopy in ribbons of gold, the gaps in the trees framing perfect rolling hills. Charlie, our nine-year-old guide, drops in first, warning us of any upcoming descents, whooping down the trails.
Serious plans to revamp the trails behind the school came three years ago. Mark Prust, who owns the convenience shop in Llanfyllin, had asked Revolution Bike Park’s Tim Foster to help on a project to upgrade them. The county council had agreed to lease the land to the Town Council, with Llanfyllin Community Initiative (LCI) to run it.
‘We said to the council: You’re not managing it. If something goes wrong up there, you’re the one who’s going to get it in the neck,’ Tim says.
Building the trails was a community effort. Funding from Sports Wales (via Beicio Cymru), coupled with investment from Mark and crowdfunding from the LCI formed a reasonable pot from which to start construction. Local company Ridgeway Rental donated machinery, Tim donated his time and his brother, James, building expertise. The local hardware store donated materials to build the shelter, and LCI committee members and locals, Vero Sandler and Sam Hodgson, donated ten new helmets to the school.
Back on the trails, we lose track of Charlie. His sister has got hold of some kind of pocket watch and decides to time our runs, hurling abuse at intervals during our descents, designed to inspire speed. Charlie emerges from a bush holding a chicken, grinning.
Then two boys flash past my friend and I as we slog up the short climb back to the head of the trails. They’re on ‘Llwynatic’, the hardest of the three routes, gliding effortlessly downhill.
Louie and Oscar are thirteen and mad on bikes. Oscar has paired his school polo shirt with a pair of pristine Dharco trousers, and Louie is dripped out in the latest gear. His dad, Ian, has driven them up after school for a session before tea. He liked this kind of stuff back in the day, he tells me, though he’s swapped his analogue bike for electric now.
This area has a strong mountain bike history, Ian says, proud. The Seagraves live close, Sandler and Hodgson have a place up the hill and mtb hotspots are sprinkled all around: Nant Mawr Quarry; Revs; Nescliffe woods. Plus, Llanfyllin School counts World Cup champion Joe Breeden among its alumni.
‘There’s a pedigree of mountain biking in the area, and we wanted to keep that going,’ Tim continues.
‘Giving young people in every area, but particularly in these rural areas, something to do that is positive is just a win-win for everyone. Biking isn’t the be-all and end-all, but you’ve got to do something, and this is something.’
The mystery that has shrouded the Coed y Cain trails has, purposefully, been lifted. They’re for everyone now, designed to give people an entry into the sport, to get more kids progressing on bikes, and help build a pathway to bigger parks, like Revolution. And last weekend saw the site’s first jam, led by Sandler, Hodgson and Seagrave dressed up as massive inflatable farm animals.
Before Mark, Tim, the LCI and the council decided to do something about the land behind the school, it was a health hazard, criss-crossed with long disused bike tracks. The potential was there to make it into something usable, that could benefit a rural community and provide somewhere for kids to go and develop their skills. They did it, and they’ve proven that, with calculated support, a community can come together to make something good, something that’s used, with the potential to create a new generation of talented riders from this small corner of Wales.
‘As difficult as it felt to get it over the line, the hardest thing will be maintaining it forever,’ Tim says, ‘so that five years from now, when the initial excitement about its opening is gone, people will take it on board.’
As Tim and I wrap up our call, I ask him one last question. Did the Athertons ever actually build the trails behind Llanfyllin School? Tim reckons not, but “there are very few pieces of land that don’t bear a shovel mark from them at some point. As to whether they ever went there, or whether they dug up there…I can’t say.”
This woodland’s mythic identity lives on.
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