Sometimes you just need to mix things up. Take the road less travelled (or in this case the trail less ridden), take a risk, try something new. After all as some random wise man once allegedly said ‘variety is the spice of life’.

It’s all to easy to get into a riding rut. Same routes on the road bike, same trails on the MTB.  In part I blame laziness, and I think in these Strava segment obsessed times the constant urge to chase ever better segment times in a vain effort to surpass  total strangers on the Strava leaderboard can play a part as well for some riders.

Anyway the other evening I was getting my riding kit together some rare for me pre-ride preparation for a day out on the Mountain Bike the next day. Now 95% of my off-road adventures are undertaken at the excellent Coed Llandegla trail centre in sunny North Wales. I’ve been riding regularly at ‘Degla’ since about 2009 and I know it extremely well. Every bump and dip in the trail is an old friend or nemesis, I’ve sweated up the climbs and careened down the descents many times. And here in lies the problem –  I know the trails so well that its become all to easy to duck out of all the bits I struggle on. That rocky climb on the black run I haven’t cleaned for about 3 years, I’m clipping out and off the bike halfway up now as an almost reflex action. Theres a tight righthand switch back I’ve never got round without dabing a foot – I’ve already told myself I won’t make it as I enter the section every ride, and guess what, I don’t!

Then it dawned on me,……. I could ride somewhere else in the morning. I could set myself free from these self-imposed boundaries that have been shackling my riding, I could plunge into the unknown bravely throwing myself into alien sections of single track without knowing exactly what was waiting for me around each corner or over each crest…. blah, blah, blah…etc. And besides it was Monday tomorrow and the cafe and shop at Llandegla would be shut denying me my post ride bacon roll and furtive stroking of expensive Yeti Cycles framesets.

So, the next day dawned and thanks to my rigorous preparations of the previous evening departure from the declining cyclist HQ is painless and early. It needs to be as I’ve a long way to go (and a short time to get there as Jerry Reed once warbled, – google Smokey &the bandit if you’re too young to get the reference ) In a cruel twist of fate for my indecisive nature my venerable and often contradictory sat-nav takes me straight past the entrance road to Llandegla on the way into my journey into the unknown, and with the sat-nav predicting another hours drive ahead at that point I’m sorely tempted to take the easy option and choose familiarity over adventure. Its only with a supreme effort of will that I manage to resist its siren call and hardening my heart I drive on further into the wilds of Wales.

Coed Y Brenin nestled in the Snowdonia national park is the grand daddy of trail centre riding in the UK. Like my faithful Llandegla it boasts a cafe, bike shop and miles and miles of purpose built way marked trails. I’ve ridden here once before years ago on a day so biblically wet even the rock gardens seemed in danger of floating off down the trail. I remember it as very rocky, very challenging and in places butt clenchingly scary. If there’s somewhere to jolt me out of my riding complacency this is it.

Pulling into the car park and prepping the bike and my riding gear I feel both a frisson of apprehension and at the same time excitement for the ride to come, which at some odd almost masochistic level is precisely the feeling I was after. If I want a trail to challenge me and force me to up my mediocre riding game I’m going to find it here.

And a couple of hours later tucking into a hearty and very calorific in all the wrong ways Full Welsh Breakfast on the terrace of the cafe I could reflect on a ride which had brought me everything I’d hoped for when I sailed past Llandegla’s entrance earlier. Not knowing exactly what was round each corner meant I’d given 100% to each section because I didn’t know what was ahead so hadn’t had the chance to talk myself out of it before my front wheel hit it. Dont get me wrong, I didn’t suddenly turn into some sort of riding god – on the first rock infested climb alone I’d tasted the dirt after spinning out and stalling trying to get up a  very modest rock step without the requisite momentum. I still couldn’t get tight right hand berms right either and ended up stuttering round them with a line akin to the outline of a twenty pence piece, but at least I was trying.

After all as Samuel Beckett so succinctly put it, ‘Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again, fail again. Fail Better.’ That in a nut shell was what riding somewhere different last Monday did to improve my riding. I was still failing, but at least I was failing after trying instead of failing because I was bottling out without trying. In fact I was so inspired that after lunch I repeated some sections of the morning ride and according to the god of Strava I managed to lop almost 50 seconds off my morning time through the ‘Uncle Fester’ section of singletrack, and I even managed to ride it second time without the Addams Family theme tune running through my head putting me off…….

So, will I ride at Coed Y Brenin again? ohhh yes. It’s an excellent and challenging trail center were I could ride for weeks without coming close to mastering the myriad of trails on offer. Will I ride it all the time? Nope because as I found out on the almost 3 hour drive home it’s just too far for me personally. Special occasions or when I either manage to get up early or don’t have to be home for the school run we see me make the effort to travel that bit further, and these sorts of days are for me quite rare unfortunately.

So I’ll still be giving the parking attendant at Coed Llandegla a hearty ‘good morning’ more often than not, but having reminded myself of just what I can manage when I actually try, I’ll be attacking the familiar with a bit more belief and venom hopefully instead of taking the easy option on automatic pilot every time.