cycling question

jonjhargreaves's picture Submitted by jonjhargreaves on

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Can anyone tell me what cycling is like around the area.  I'm coming tomorrow with the family and would like to leave the car and just use bikes for the week.  I have a competent 10 year old cyclist, she can cycle 20 miles on the flat but much less if hilly.  I notice there is a cycle route running alongside the canal.  Is this safe (ish)?  Are the roads to Crickhowell and other local towns/villages reasonably quiet?

 

peridot's picture peridot replied on

The A40 is a busy road although with reasonable visibility and not too 'fast'. The B4558 at the back of Glanusk is quiter but can be narrow and have poor visibility in places. However once you access the Brecon Monmothshire canal there's a good footpath / cycleway all along it. It's popular with cyclists and very safe. Roads are pretty flat into Crickhowell, and in the other direction to Talybont and even Brecon although if you head North or South away from Glausk you'll quickly encounter hilly territory. 

Enjoy your week!

jonjhargreaves's picture jonjhargreaves replied on

thanks,

I was hoping to avoid the A40, was really just checking that canal path was good and not to close to the edge of the water!

Wakestock replied on

I was hoping I might be able to walk along the canal towpath from Llangattock to the rear entrance. Is there a point near the entrance that you can cut across to from the path beside the canal?

peridot's picture peridot replied on

I haven't been along that part of the canal myself Wakestock, but if you look on Google Maps Satellite images for the area it seems there are a couple of options for branching off the canal path just west of Crickhowell.

rhysjmorgan replied on

Hey guys,

I'm a local guy who works on Glanusk Estate and cycles to work. The canal is great to cycle along as far and can take you to Llangattock, Gilwern and Abergavenny. It's plenty wide enough all the way along. In the other direction you can get to the lovely villages of Llangynidr and Talybont and the market town of Brecon, which is the end of the canal. To get in to Crickhowell the back road is usually fine but with the festival it'll be really busy, as it is every year, so your best bet is to cycle as far as Llangatock, come off the canal and cut through the village and that gets you down to Crickhowell bridge With the town itself being great for cyclisits.

If you take a right out of the rear entrance to the festival about 200 yards up the road there is access to the canal.

Hope that helps you,

Wakestock replied on

That's a great help thanks Rhys. We're staying just over the New Road bridge out of Crickhowell, so assume there is a point somewhere off the Cwm Crawnon road where we could access the canal? Perhaps around Dardy? Or would we have to walk further into Llangattock to access the canal? So to get to the rear Glanusk Estate entrance from the canal we would double back 200 yards or so? Is that exit by a bridge, possibly 115? I'm not sure how evident the whereabouts of where to leave the canal would be. Don't want to end up in Llangynidr two hours later!

ray_rad's picture ray_rad replied on

the dardy is where the ty croeso b&b is

you can get onto the canal there - but it's up a bloody steep hill

i'm pretty sure there's an access point right by crickhowell

ray_rad's picture ray_rad replied on

actually, looking at the map, maybe not

unless you go up the hillside rd just back from the bridge and join the canal further up

but that's a long way round

and judging by 'hillside rd's name, may not be any better...

rhysjmorgan replied on

The walk from Llangynidr is about 20-30mins and it's a nice walk.

The canal exit is right on a bridge and from memory I cant be sure which number bridge but it's in the region of 115.

As Ray says, the quickest way from the Riverside (I'm assuming that's where you are?) is to cross the river and head up the Dardy to Ty Croeso (google maps makes it look further as there are some paths through the fields and you don't need to take the road right round) where there is a canal bridge. You'd have to push your bikes up the hill but it would only take you a few minutes. You could cycle all the way up through Llangatock but it's quite a pull and a long way.

Wakestock replied on

Great, thanks for that. Yeah, we're staying at the Park Place, which is right by the river - over the bridge from Crickhowell, on the left

ray_rad's picture ray_rad replied on

have a look of this plan of the canal:

http://canalplan.org.uk/waterway/pp9g

which shows each bridge and point of interest

115 is the bridge in llangattock itself

you can click on each bridge / POI - and it'll give you details

scroll down to the bottom of each of those pages for a satellite map that shows you exactly where they are  (you need to hit the 'minus' control on these maps to zoom out a bit so you can see where you are in relation to the glanusk estate - which says 'green man festival' on it in google maps now!)

there's actually a 'glan usk' bridge (next after bridge 121) - which i think is where you'd exit the canal onto the road to get access to the festival site (at the back gate as rhys said above)

from my memory of walking along the canal, the bridges have their numbers painted on them

ray_rad's picture ray_rad replied on

do!

because i'm not ABSOLUTELY sure it's the glan usk bridge

but it'll certainly be in that general area

rhysjmorgan replied on

I've counted the Bridges through and I think it's 118. It is the only bridge where the path is not divided from the road by any sort of wall. But as you come along the canal you can see the new Far Out tent through the trees and from that point it is the next bridge up.

RachJBurns's picture RachJBurns replied on

I emailed GM with an enquiry about access from the canal towpath as well - we're staying at The Old Rectory in Llangattock on Sunday night so I can get a decent night's sleep before I drive back to Brum. I had a very prompt reply saying once you've got your wristbands you can access the site from the car park entrance after dropping down from the canal. There are maps available in the Family Camping area. From what I can see from an online OS map, there's a pumping station at the point where the towpath joins a track going town to the B road where the car park entra

Happy cycling!

ray_rad's picture ray_rad replied on

if the main car park entrance is the same as last year, the exit from the canal is well past that point - and you end up waking quite a long way back on yourself

Wakestock replied on

Thanks for all the suggestions. It certainly looks like that Glan Usk bridge is right next to the rear gate looking at the canal map, assuming there's easy enough access to the road from there. Likewise, it can't be much further on down the road from Bridge 121 either. A more pleasant walk than on the road I'd imagine, though I'm not convinced I'd be that fussed on making that journey back in the early hours after several Growlers!