For many years of SAFE have been trying to establish a link from the Walnut Tree Line (Taff Trail) permissive path , into Forest Fawr. During the recent felling work in Forest Fawr, NRW very kindly installed a new step over at the top of Abbey Close (Ty Rhiw), into the forest , thus creating a lovely circular ride that can be started or finished at several points on the route. The whole ride takes about 2 hours at a leisurely pace.
The ride is mostly off road through forestry and along a section of the Taff Trail which consists of resurfaced disused railway line, but there is about a total of a mile of roadwork involved; some through Ty Rhiw housing estate and some along the lanes in the Caerphilly Mountain area.
There is car parking suitable for trailers and small lorries in the upper Fforest Fawr car park, but the car park gets very busy at weekends so a very early start or a week day ride is best if you want to park here. There is also a large car park at the Black Cock Inn where the landlord would probably allow parking for a couple of hours in return for you visiting the pub for drinks or food after your ride (the lunchtime food is really good and very reasonably priced). Again, the pub is busy at weekends so weekdays would be more likely to be acceptable to the landlord.
Click here for the description of the route and photos
