Written by Tony Griffiths and Sue Savege, pb Bikefax
www.bikefax.com

Following on from the success of its Snowdonia guide, this new Bikefax book delves into a much less-ridden area of North Wales, therefore getting our full marks for originality. And using Tony Griffiths’s excellent local knowledge, you know you really are getting the very best routes in the area.
But it’s an odd book to use. The first obvious thing is that it’s bi-lingual: English and Welsh; with both languages appearing side by side on each page, with little or, in the case of the introduction, nothing to distinguish between them, which we found confusing. It also affects the size of the book, making it twice as big as it needs to be.
The mapping is illustration rather than OS, which means you have little idea of what the riding’s really like before you get there (unless you transpose it onto a map first), and this also makes it impossible to take a few GPS coordinates. And we’d definitely like to see grid references for start points, just to double-check we’ve got them right.
It’s quite large to carry, but you can also buy it on CD, with the added bonus of uploadable GPS tracks too. To buy the book and CD together would be over £30, which in our opinion really is too much.

MBR RATING: 7/10