Taff Trail
Fifty-five miles from Cardiff Bay to Brecon for walkers and cyclists, up the Taff valley on old railways and towpath
Indicative — sampled from open terrain data along the simplified route.
The Taff Trail runs 55 miles (88 km) from Cardiff Bay north to Brecon, following the River Taff up its valley from Cardiff into Bannau Brycheiniog. It is a shared walking and cycling route, most of it traffic-free and firmly surfaced, which makes it one of the easier ways up into the mountains — a fit cyclist can ride it in a day or two, walkers in four or five.
Out of Cardiff it runs through the city’s parks to Castell Coch, the Victorian fantasy castle above Tongwynlais, then up through Pontypridd and the old iron town of Merthyr Tydfil, passing Cyfarthfa Castle. Beyond Merthyr it leaves the valleys behind and climbs steadily over the Torpantau pass — the one real ascent — before dropping to the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal, whose towpath carries it the last miles into Brecon.
A good deal of the trail follows the trackbeds of the railways that once served these valleys, chief among them the Taff Vale Railway, engineered by Brunel and opened in 1840 to carry coal and iron down to Cardiff docks. Where it climbs to Torpantau it borrows the old Brecon and Merthyr line. Reusing those graded routes is why the gradients stay gentle.
Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil are on the rail network, and the Valleys lines cross the trail at Pontypridd and other points, so it lends itself to being ridden or walked a section at a time. It forms part of the National Cycle Network.
