The birth of the Anglesey XC racing scene

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BY: Jason Miles

Published: 19th June, 2014

It was Dave that stumbled upon this race, while looking for another road race to enter. There it was – a mountain bike race on Anglesey. “Do you fancy it?” he asked in an email. There’s no way I’m going to miss this, I thought. I pretty much grew up on that island and I’m fairly certain there’s never been a race there before….

The venue was Parys Mountain – a long-since abandoned open-cast copper mine near Amlwch on the Isle of Anglesey. The abundance of copper ore is obvious when you see the colour of the place – all orangey-reddish brown rocks and that’s about it. No bushes or trees. Some murky pools of what is probably water mixed with heavy metals of some sort and you’d probably be better off not falling in or refilling water bottles in them….
An ideal setting, then. You could even pretend you were racing on Mars.

With a start line made up of me, Dave and a handful of local riders (in fact there were more spectators than riders actually taking part) it wasn’t the most crowded race I’ve ever done but everyone…ok most people seemed up for it. Dave and I got away quickly at the start and started to create a gap to third place.
In spite of the lack of vegetation at the quarry (not much is going to grow in this soil), the course still managed to include a particularly tricky bit that had you dealing with loose rocks, a deep rut and several prickly gorse bushes. After the second or third lap though, there was more of a person-sized gap in the bushes.

The whole course was predominantly loose gravel and rocks so a light touch on the brakes was needed but the reward was some hilarious and sometimes-scary sideways action. The track we were riding wound its way around the quarry and headed upwards, sometimes quite steeply, to a ruined windmill-shaped building at the top (with views of the sea) before heading downwards again, towards the start/finish and the comedy gorse bush. We had an hour plus a lap to get our lines around the gravelly bends dialled and collect as many thorns in our legs. With an average speed that must have been approaching 100mph (ok, maybe 80) everyone tore around it, scattering rocks and gravel and generally having a brilliant time.

There’s tons of potential for more racing here. There’s plenty of car parking, plenty of scope for varying the course, it’s got hills and it’s in a genuinely beautiful part of the world that you’d probably not want to escape from immediately after the race. Race organisers Chris and Dewi want to get more races sorted, so it could be an exciting time for the new Anglesey XC scene.

(oh, and I won, by the way. Dave was third after belting both wheels into a big orange rock on the last lap)

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