Ridgeway Loop Saturday 26th April

lexiekay

thanks! sounds like i should give it a go one week. Those are the sort of routes i usually go on, so i should be okay i guess.
Might need to get some decent lights first though

NinjaBadger

indeed,

if your new to night riding and just want to give it a try, check out the tesco cree 3 thread in the mtb general section for some cheap lights so you can give it a whirl without spending £100's

PhillM

dirtbiker100 wrote:

Rode it twice last night actually and I was thinking if i'd be able to help. Will see if i can get another one or two to reply here or on facebook too.
I'd really like to be able to add some ideas to the cooking pot too.
Was surprised last night though, seems like another 200m? added in the last two weeks?

In terms of helping build - will there be certain days where we all get together to build? follow an agenda and go down at different times?

will get on facebook asap but blocked at work no surprise

can't wait to get digging. was thinking of heading over there this afternoon too actually. got a bmx so was gonna try out the jumps.
Is it going to be rideable this weekend? or is it pretty much going to be closed off due to the running?

ok think thats enough from me ha ha

How far did you get? We had been holding back on opening a section until last weekend, but it was a lot more than 200m long! We started clearing that the day I got involved, which must be almost a month ago now. Its a bit hard to follow at the moment in places, and we need to go back and dig the trail in properly to make it easier to see. Steve has spent a lot of money on some very nice new signs which we shall also be installing very soon.

Myself and Steve will be down there tomorrow afternoon at some point to continue with the trail clearing. Anyone passing is more than welcome to pop in and say hello, although I can't be precise about where we'll be! I think Sunday will be a no-go unless you ride down there as Pipers Way will be closed off. We will organise a more formal building day soon, probably a Sunday, with some sort of target or agenda. The last "building day" we had involved a group of 10 from Intel, and its surprising how much you can do in a day with that many willing hands! Theres nothing to stop people from chipping in outside of those days, but I must stress that whatever goes on needs approval from Steve first. One wrongly placed jump could me the whole thing gets shut down!

Regarding ideas and suggestions - the more the better really, and I'll gladly welcome any input from riders. Thats why its there afterall! We do have guidelines set by the council though, and it does get inspected by them frequently. Can't grumble too much though, when you step back and consider what they've let us do so far!

I'll post details of the building days on the Facebook group and on here. Theres a few before and after shots on facebook of what we've been up to as well.

Thanks for all the enthusiasm so far - its been far better than expected!

PhillM

Anybody fancy popping down this coming Sunday?

lexiekay

Yes I might be up for a bit of trail building on Sunday - what sort of time were you thinking?

forgotrafe

I might be around as well. Let us know a time and I'll see what happens.

Do you need us to confirm, or just turn up if we can?

PhillM

How does sometime between 10 and 11 am sound? Although that said, I'll be there from 9 til dusk anyway, so whenever you can really. Might be easier if theres just a few of you to give you my mobile number. That way you can ring me if/when you get there and i'll come out and meet you. I think the most useful tool you could bring with you would be a rake, although a decent spade might also be useful. Gloves, old clothes, food and water are pretty much essential too. Myself and a mate spent the weekend clearing our way through the section that surrounds the sports field. This newly cut bit now needs the trail tread clearing - which is usually just a case of raking the loose topsoil and other guff out of the way, leaving the more compact soil underneath for the actual trail surface.

Rafe, Lexikay - I'll pm you my mobile number

forgotrafe

Sorry, been quiet because shoulder injury is back. At least it behaved whilst I went and did my Ireland ride.

I reckon something isn't where it should be and some days it gets trapped which is excruciating and other days it doesn't and then it's just a little sore. Chiropractor reckons she should have fixed me by now so fact it's still recurring means I should take things further Don't want to risk long term damage so am going to take her advice.

Oh well. Be back out soon. Need to work off all the feeling-sorry-for-myself chocolate

PhillM

Just to let you guys know that we'll be having another trail day this coming Sunday 2nd November if any of you are free and fancy lending a hand for as long as you can spare

strodey

Anyone do any night rides round this area?

dirtbiker100

They must do, the ridgeway isn't exactly hard so it'll be ideal for night riding. planning on upgrading my lights then will be going for a ride or 5 in the near future. don't red planet still do rides even though its dark? dunno, don't quote me on that one.

PhillM

Just to let you guys know... Myself and Tom will be down at Croft all day Saturday and maybe Sunday afternoon (depending on the weather) working on the trail. If anyone feels like popping down and lending a hand let me know

Morty_Oxon

Haven't been on here for a while and just come across this thread. My local rides usually involve bits and pieces of the Ridgeway: Foxhill, Hinton Parva, Bishopstone, up towards Wantage, the Lambourn area and the occasional mess about at Badbury clump.

Haven’t managed to get out with the lights for a few weeks but once I’m a bit less busy I’d be happy to meet up if anyone else is keen.

Cookingongas

Guys, I am new to this as had a few years green laning and ride road bike (motorbike) just fancy getting fit and muddy, so bought a 2 year old Stumpjumper and now fancy getting out. Please let me know and will meet up.
Cheers

forgotrafe

Morty_Oxon & Cookingongas - keep your eye on here and hopefully we'll get some more rides organised soon.

PhillM - pleased I could help out a bit on the Swindon trail yesterday, sorry I couldn't offer more time.

everyone else - the Swindon trail is looking good but desperately short of help. If you can spare time then I urge you get in touch with PhillM as they're doing a fantastic job and I think we'll end up with a great little trail on our doorstep. There's a bit of lottery funding for materials and Swindon council have "donated" the land but everything else is up to volunteers.

Englishsid

sorry been away for a while... fall off, hurt knee...

off to croft on Thursday/Friday so will post comments on the facebook group after.

-Dave

PhillM

Rafe - As I said on Sunday, the few hours of time you gave us were very much appreciated! We must have moved 6 tonnes in 3 hours - a few weekends before it took us 4 hours to shift 2 tonnes half the distance! Myself and Tom are having a weekend off this coming weekend, but I'm sure we'll be around the weekend after.

Everyone Else - As Rafe said, we are desperately short of help. With all the rain recently most of the open sections of trail have turned into mud baths simply because we ran out of time to surface them. We have been working on the very last section that takes you right back to the start for the last few weekends and we hope to have this opened by the end of the month. This will be fully surfaced, so should stand up to the winter rain. We then aim to work backwards around the trail, fixing any sticky sections. We do have approx. 30 tonnes of gravel on site, ready for the trail surface, with more on order. Thanks to Rafe and his Land Rover, we have started to move this into smaller piles around the site, meaning less wheelbarrowing! As an idea, it takes one person around 2 hours to clear, dig and surface 50 metres of trail. The trail is around 6KM long, so thats 240 man hours, and lots of wheelbarrow pushing!

PhillM

Map of current route. At the moment the trail ends at the south west corner of the sports field, opposite the smaller pile of gravel.

PhillM

Stuff like this takes hours to build. Just moving the rocks around took an hour or so between two of us.

tomstickland

Hello, first post here.

Phil and myself have a lot of plans for the trail, but it's early days yet. Surfacing the existing route is the current priority. Once that's done we can improve the bits we're not happy with and get on with the interesting features.

We've been to all the major routes over the last 5-10 years: Cwm Carn, Afan, Brechfa, Nant Aryian, Clichmachx, Coedybrenin, Penmachno, Llandegla, Dalbeatie, Mabie, Kirrougtree, Ae, Innerleither, Glentress, plus Morzine etc.

We have realistic expectations - ideally it'll end up as a decent loop of around 6km length, surfaced so it's not a bog, and with enough features (planks, ramps, rocks, jumps etc) to keep the entertainment levels up.

If you were to ride it today then it'd take a certain amount of imagination to appreciate what it could be rather than what it is now.

The building aspect is a lot of fun. We're planning on going down most weekends between now and Christmas and will always appreciate help. It's quite free and easy - we bounce ideas around and pretty much build what we like. Within reason - the council inspect the results, but we can have rollable jumps etc.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=41279586404









http://www.flickr.com/photos/92961862@N ... 966352432/

There is a google map but it seems totally unreliable.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0& ... e2eb50d6b9

forgotrafe

Tom/Phil,

Awesome pictures, especially the aerial view of the trail.

This thread doesn't have the best title for a trail in Croft Woods, Swindon. So perhaps you should put a post in the other, more popular, forums linking to it?

BTW I also have a high-lift jack and hand winch that you can borrow. Both incredibly powerful given they are hand powered. Will help move rocks/tree stumps etc.

tomstickland

We've posted on MBR too. This needs a new thread really.

Hand winch sounds good.

PhillM

The final 250m section from the south west corner of the sports field back to the carpark/trailhead is open as of this evening. Do please bear in mind that the whole section has been surfaced within the last month, so it may take a while for it to bed in fully. The berms (all 14 of them!) in particular may remain loose on the surface, so please try to avoid skidding! Any feedback that you may have after riding this section is more than welcome.

Bossangel

So anyone up for a nightride over the ridgeway in the not too distant future?

PhillM

Hi guys

Just to let you know that work is still on going down at Croft Country Park. More details here http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12594722&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

forgotrafe

I've been busy working on www.mbswindon.co.uk with the help of PhilM.

What I need now is people to give me some routes so I can fill out that section of the site. Full details of what I need are here:

http://www.mbswindon.co.uk/ridgeway/submit-a-route/

Any help would be much appreciated!