I bought my CCM MT 230 from Nathan who runs a kind of Holiday/experience/bike testing outfit in Braunton. The MT230's were left over from a CCM military contract and Nathan acquired them and sold them off as beginners green laning bikes. My main attraction was the price and 825mm seat height, as I am a stumper.
Anyway he runs these weekends every now and then and a few of the other MT230 owners saw it as a good way to get together. Based near Rhayader in mid Wales. One thing I like about riding with other MT230's is that it shows what the bike can do as there are much better riders than me, and rather than thinking "Oh I can't do what @ttrtim can do because I don't have a ktm", when in fact it is because I don't have his talent.
Its was £120 for Friday and Saturday nights. But we took the option of paying an extra £35 to arrive Thursday night to get an extra days riding. Anyway £155 for 3 meals, 3 breakfasts and 3 night bunkhouse, seemed OK.
On Thursday I trailered up to Tiv J27 where I picked up another MT230 and rider, Hector from Barnstaple, we arrived at Woodhouse Farm Bunkhouse by about 6pm. My borrowed camping fridge had been running for the last 2 days to cool it down and at the last minute I filled it with chilly blocks and beer. The beer was still frosty at 6pm after 6 hrs in the car, so everything was golden!
After 3 beers I gave a demo on how not to change a tyre as I still had my hated trials tyre on from last weekends Somerset forest day, and did not want to spend the next three days without my trusty mitas xt454. Mousse lube, dust, and skinned knuckles in front of a crowd was good fun. Followed by Nathan's barbequing which did the trick. Nathan had provided a trail route which we elected to do on the Saturday when most of the other riders would want to do it. So I had previously made up a route for Friday inspired by one Tim sent me, which included Strata Florida, a major attraction for me.
Friday morning I find myself leading out a group of 5 MT230's, a Himi 450 and a CRF300 Rally. Our first issue was that the World Enduro organisers had rudely not consulted our calendar and decided to hold a round at Rhayader, so we were concerned that some of our green lanes might be taped off. In fact it was not bad, we crossed the open road sections a few times an only two tracks local to us were off limits, however Rhayader town was busy as hell with queues everywhere for petrol, pubs, beer shops..
The GRM in Wales shows how brilliant our Devon operation is, very little information about any of the trails so we went in blind. As it turned out we lucked out. A mix of fire road, loamy woods, slate climbs, some rocky stuff and river crossings brought us to the Devils Staircase, a tight twisty road that leads in to the start of Strata Florida.
Strata Florida was everything I expected, no major technical challenges, but fun rocky bits, and umpteen gullies full of water. The 4wds make the gullies deeper and in places the water was up to just below my saddle.
The Himilayan rider, turns out he is an ex enduro racer and currently rides twinshock motocross, was really impressive. He took all the trails in his stride and changed my opinion about bigger, heavier bikes. It's not the bike..
The MT230's were faultless, except for Hectors which managed to get water in the airbox and we had to drain the floatbowl twice. The rest of us had zero issues.
After Strata Florida we had a nice fast fire road that skirted the top of Claerwen Reservoir.
Then below Claerwen is a great rocky road, with more water baths, and some big slab steps where we had one or two refusals, but all safe. Probably the trickiest trail of the day.
We finished the day with a nice selection of curries made by Nathan and his crew, and more beers and tall stories..
Saturday we soon realised was going to be the last day rising as Sunday predicted rain. Some of the guests were off to Sweetlamb for training, and the rest of us were off for a ride. We had a choice of either Nathans route, or a number of us chose to do a route I had made to the east which looked to be more challenging. As it turned out our luck reversed and every single trail was a fire road or farm track, every one of them. Great views and lots of fun, but mild disappointment after the day before. Again this rubbed in how easy the Devon TRF make it to explore and find the kind of trails you like, as none of these had info on them and I had assumed based on the names (Water break your neck lane?) or looking at blurry google maps that these might be fun.
The group that did the prepared trail had much more of a challenge and I was kicking myself for not just joining in.
Anyway a great weekend was had, food was great, met some really good blokes and rode some awesome trails. I will defo go back to Wales.
One of the chaps we met made this video which includes me and the other mt230's , worth a watch.
-- Edited by wlm on Tuesday 5th of August 2025 09:51:10 AM
-- Edited by wlm on Tuesday 5th of August 2025 09:53:12 AM
Yes we had the same issue regarding the Welsh GRM earlier this year. The lack of descriptions meant we just had to go for some 'all the lanes' routes and hope for the best. We definitely found a lot of peachy ones around the Dolgellau area and Barmouth but there was also a lot of very scenic twin track. But it's part of the fun, and means you get to decide what you think of the lane rather than someone else.
Email is out about Jule's trip. If he can get an idea of numbers then it'll help with the planning.
Loved the video . Brought back many memories,having ridden all the area covered many times, apart from the private sweetlamb patch .
Probably ought to make the effort and go again.
What I would like advanced knowledge of is how many effing gates are there on any of those Welsh lanes ..
And yeah you were lucky there had been some recent rain as some of those trails are incredibly dusty and being tec for a group means a week of coughing dirt to clear your lungs. My strategy was always to tuck in behind the leader. A lot more gate duties but a lot less dust inhaling
