Marin's Very Slippery Under Leaves

Well I must admit a bit of a soft spot for the Marin mountain bike trail in the nearby Gwydyr Forest - a very challenging Red rated route for those who are reasonably competent in off-road riding. It's 25km long with 450m of climbing and way more technical, hard work and, with the extra challenge of wet deciduous leaves on wet rocks in mid-autumn, needing significantly more concentration that the Red routes at Llandegla. At 7:30am even on a Saturday, it seems that many riders were giving the ride a wide berth that weekend as the trail was very quiet, even by the time I got around at about 10:15 - possibly many are already aware of the problems with wet leaves at this particular time of year. Many of the singletrack descents were as slow as the climbs, in order to stay on the bike, which I did most of the time! A 4km ride to the start of the trail from Hafod Farm is 50% on cycle / footpath alongside the main road, with work underway on what looks like an almost complete run of such path from Betws through to Llanrwst. So Hafod is a good place to be based if you are keen on tackling the Marin