Evo Triangle: an honest guide, and nearby roads worth adding
The Evo Triangle has a bigger reputation than any twenty miles of road in Britain. It is genuinely good. It is also widely misunderstood, increasingly enforced, and better as one ingredient in a day than as the destination.
What it actually is
The Evo Triangle is not an official name, a signposted route, or a place you will find on a map. It is three ordinary public roads in Denbighshire, north Wales, that happen to meet in a rough triangle across Mynydd Hiraethog — Denbigh Moor. The name comes from the car magazine that used it for road tests and photography from the 1990s onward.
The three sides are:
- The A543 across the moor, between Pentrefoelas in the south-west and Bylchau, above Denbigh, in the north-east.
- The B4501, running south from the A543 past Llyn Brenig down to Cerrigydrudion.
- The A5, closing the triangle between Cerrigydrudion and Pentrefoelas.
A lap is roughly twenty miles. You can drive it in well under half an hour, which is the first thing worth knowing: whatever you have been told, this is not a day out on its own.
What each side is really like
Open, fast, almost entirely unfenced moorland, with sightlines that run for a very long way and a surface that is generally good. It crests and dips rather than turning sharply, so it flows in long arcs instead of asking much of the steering.
This is exactly why magazines liked it. Long sightlines and no hedges make a road easy to photograph, easy to assess a car on, and comparatively predictable at speed. Those are testing virtues, and they are not quite the same as driving virtues.
Part of the A543 is now covered by average-speed cameras. This is the single most important practical fact about the Triangle today and the one most old write-ups omit.
Narrower, bumpier, less predictable and considerably more interesting. It runs down past the Llyn Brenig reservoir with more genuine direction changes than the A543 manages in twice the distance, and with far less room for error.
If you came for driving rather than for the name, this is the side you will remember. It also punishes carelessness in a way the A543 does not: less width, worse surface, blind crests, and the occasional gate or cattle grid.
Telford's Holyhead road: well engineered, well sighted, and quick. It is a good road rather than a driving road, and its job here is to close the loop and get you back to the start.
It is also the busiest of the three, carrying real traffic between England and Holyhead.
The honest verdict
The Evo Triangle is a genuinely good stretch of road in beautiful, empty country, and it is worth driving. But its reputation sets an expectation it cannot meet, and it is worth saying plainly why.
It became famous because it is an excellent place to test a car — not because it is the most rewarding place to drive one. Openness, visibility and consistent surface are what a road tester needs. A driver looking for engagement wants direction changes, elevation and rhythm, and there are roads within thirty miles that offer more of all three.
It is also busier than its emptiness suggests. On a dry weekend it attracts a steady stream of people who have read the same articles you have, which means the road is full of others doing exactly what you came to do. That is fine — it just is not the solitary moorland blast the photography implies.
It is a public road, and it is treated as one. Average-speed cameras cover part of the A543, the area sees regular police attention, and people live and work along all three sides. The Triangle has a reputation among locals as well as among drivers, and not a flattering one. Drive accordingly.
Practical notes
- There is nothing on the loop. No fuel, no facilities. Cerrigydrudion and Pentrefoelas at the southern corners are your options; fill up before rather than after.
- It is high and exposed. Cloud sits on the moor when the valleys are clear, and visibility can drop to nothing quickly. Wind across the open sections is a real factor in a light car and on a bike.
- Sheep are unfenced on the moorland sections, including on the A543's fastest parts.
- The B4501 surface is variable. Standing water, edge break-up and gravel are all normal.
- Weekday mornings are transformative. The same twenty miles at nine on a Tuesday is a completely different and much better experience than three o'clock on a Sunday.
Nearby roads worth adding
This is the real answer to "is the Evo Triangle worth the drive?" — yes, if you treat it as one component of a proper day. Everything below is within about an hour.
The obvious addition and the best one. A sustained climb around the head of a valley with a real summit, far more elevation change than anything on the Triangle, and a proper sense of occasion. Busy on weekend afternoons; superb early.
A short, narrow, quiet lane that most people driving the Triangle never notice, running off toward Ysbyty Ifan. Nothing dramatic — simply a lovely piece of small road in a place where everyone else is going fast in a straight line.
Carry on west on the A5 instead of turning back at Pentrefoelas and the country changes completely. Betws-y-Coed, then the Ogwen valley, then a choice: the A4086 through the Llanberis Pass, or the A498 past Llyn Gwynant to Beddgelert.
The A498 in particular is the driving road the Triangle is often assumed to be — genuinely linked bends, genuine elevation, and scenery that does not need a caption.
The A494 south-west from Corwen to Bala is quick and pleasant; the A4212 west from Bala past Llyn Celyn toward Trawsfynydd is better still — open, flowing, and usually empty.
These pair naturally with the Triangle for a full day using the A5 as the connector.
A better day than a lap
If you have driven from a distance to be there, do not just circulate. A loop that works: Llangollen up the A542 over the Horseshoe Pass to Ruthin, A525 west to Denbigh, then the A543 south-west across the moor, the B4501 south to Cerrigydrudion, and the A5 east through Corwen back to Llangollen.
That is around ninety miles, it includes both of the Triangle's worthwhile sides, and it ends where it started — which beats three laps and a long drive home, every time.
Drive these in ApexRoute
The Evo Triangle is in ApexRoute's UK & Ireland Famous Roads pack, listed under its three road numbers with the cameras noted rather than left out, and so are the Cat and Fiddle, Snake Pass and the A4069 Black Mountain Pass. Open one in the app and it sets that road up as a route you can generate a loop around — which, as above, is a better use of the drive than laps.
ApexRoute is free to start, needs no account, and carries no ads or trackers — apexroute.froggyeye.com.