Coed-y-Brenin

Coed y Brenin (Welsh for King's Forest) is a forest in the Snowdonia National Park, North Wales near Dolgellau at grid reference SH7127. It is popular for its mountain bike trails and hiking paths. It has several man-made mountain bike singletrack courses in a woodland setting, varying in length from 12 to 38 km (7 to 23 mi), and one dual slalom course.

The site is owned and operated by Natural Resources Wales, and covers an area of some 9,000 acres (36 km²) around the valleys of the rivers Mawddach, Eden, Gain and Wen. There is no charge for using the trails, but there is a charge for the car park at Coed y Brenin Visitor Centre. This costs £1 for 1 hour, £3 for 3 hours and £5 for all day parking. All of the proceeds go towards the maintenance and improvement of the forest trails.

The site was identified as a potential mountain bike race course in 1990, and the first races were held there in 1991. The initial course had to be chopped out of an impassable rock-strewn terrain.

Shortly afterwards an Mountain Biking hire shop, together with a visitor centre and café were opened at Maesgwm. Five waymarked trails were developed by Dafydd Davis who was employed by Forest Enterprise as a Forest Sports Development Adviser, grew Coed y Brenin into a major UK mountain biking centre. Davis received an MBE in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours list for 'services to forestry' relating to his work on this resort.

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Wikipedia