London Calling

cooldad

You don't need anything special for Swinley, I use a 100mm XC bike, but have done all of it, including the 'DH' trails on an old rigid with canti brakes. But it's not as much fun.

thel33ter

I used to have Cooldads bike, but as I progressed, I needed a bigger bike.

So I ended up with my Enduro, 160mm travel at each end, but weighs around 13kg, which DH wheels and silly heavy forks, which ain't bad. It copes with Aston perfectly, but also is fine with day long rides.

Anonymous

Blind Danny Johnson wrote:

Also is Swinley where you mainly ride?

How about anyone else, what bikes do you use for Swinley style terrain?

I'd say in general we mainly ride Surrey Hills which is more natural, technical, hilly and much bigger area.

But we have periods of frequenting Swinley a bit. Various other little options around locally too (local to me anyway) such as Tunnel Hill.

Bike - GT ID 5 xcr. Basically a cheap 5" full sus job with funky independent drive suspension thing (fairly old technology really). General trail bike. Done the local stuff, Cwmcarn, Aston, Afan, CYB and others on it. Not a DH or freeride bike, but the bike holds together fine even after crashes when I've attempted such stuff (unlike me!). Probably not the ideal bike for Swinley. Something lighter more XC style would suit Swinley. You can even be at home on a hard tail there. Depends what you do really.

Browsing other bikes at the moment.

Atz

Put it this way, 5 of us rode Saturday; 3 on FS, 2 on HT. On average it's clear the HT riders were faster.

cooldad

Atz wrote:

Put it this way, 5 of us rode Saturday; 3 on FS, 2 on HT. On average it's clear the HT riders were faster.

That had less to do with bikes than skill, or lack thereof.

benpinnick

cooldad wrote:

Atz wrote:

Put it this way, 5 of us rode Saturday; 3 on FS, 2 on HT. On average it's clear the HT riders were faster.

That had less to do with bikes than skill, or lack thereof.

Lol, beat me to the punch there.

Atz

Well that's the point I was making really. It's not about the bike, more about the rider in most places we ride (I'm sure fully rigid would be slower at Aston/Cwmcarn obviously). Having been comprehensively thrashed around Swinley not too long after I started riding by someone on a drop bar rigid singlespeed, I'm long done with the idea that a bike is why a rider is fast. The bike just makes a specific rider faster or slower.

cooldad

Ah yes I see you did say 'HT riders'. Small semantic point overlooked in my eagerness to make a cheap joke.

Atz

Cheap jokes? You? Surely not

cooldad

Sarcasm duly noted and treated with the contempt it deserves.

ThePriory1978

Out of interest. Can you rent a full-sus bike at Aston Hill?
I like to think i have the ability, but i cant afford a decent full-sus bike.

Atz

There is NOTHING at Aston; you have what you bring with you. You can ride a hardtail there, a lot do.

cooldad

Don't think so, no facilities there at all.

ThePriory1978

Well if you never hear from me again. You know why.

cooldad

Can I have what's left of your bike?

mtb crazy

is aston very technical then? im used to my HT cube so for me riding a full suss would be strange!!

Atz

Well, I'd say you'd find the XC loop over by the 4x course tiring but not terribly challenging (unless you go fast), the other part of the loop (aka the red DH) I think you'd find fairly technical but there's nothing too dodgy. The blacks are a different matter and really do need a bit more skill. As said, you don't NEED a FS, it's just easier.

Just a word of warning, NEVER, EVER go to Aston when it's wet or damp. It's a mix of clay and chalk and it's basically like an ice rink in the wet.

cooldad

Couple of us went down on of the blacks by mistake thinking it was part of the XC loop.
Very steep and scary. We ended up walking/sliding down quite a bit of it.
The XC loop is pretty rubbish, but the red run is great fun, not worth a trip just for that though.

Anonymous

Check out the videos on their web site.

e.g. http://www.rideastonhill.co.uk/downhills/blackdh/

It's deceptive though on video as you can't see how steep it is. Black run and one of the others had me coming off over the bars each time I tried on some of the steep turns with rooty drops.

p.s. bike hire, could try local bike shops nearby. A few listed on their site: http://www.rideastonhill.co.uk/about/facilities/

mtb crazy

most of that does look pretty technical. reminds me of SH.

cooldad

Except 3x as steep - doesn't show up in the video.
And nasty drops in the middle of switchback corners.

Atz

Honestly, the first time I rode the blacks at Aston, I spent half the time thinking "going to die going to die going to die going to die". It's harder than Cwmcarn imo

cooldad

Which is why I stuck to the red after my detour onto the black.
The children seemed to enjoy it though - supraman, thel33ter

benpinnick

cooldad wrote:

Which is why I stuck to the red after my detour onto the black.
The children seemed to enjoy it though - supraman, thel33ter

I need to get to Aston... Haven't been there for years! We used to race there quite a lot, including on a hard tail. From the video the Black DH is roughly the same as it was back then, so put some big (2.5) tyres on your bike of any style and all will be good!

ThePriory1978

benpinnick wrote:

so put some big (2.5) tyres on your bike of any style and all will be good!

That makes me feel better.
My 100mm of travels gunna be working overtime.
Bet i'll still be faster than some reformed middle aged bikers however. No affence meant to any reformed middle aged bikers.

cooldad

ThePriory1978 wrote:

benpinnick wrote:

so put some big (2.5) tyres on your bike of any style and all will be good!

That makes me feel better.
My 100mm of travels gunna be working overtime.
Bet i'll still be faster than some reformed middle aged bikers however. No affence meant to any reformed middle aged bikers.

No offence taken, as I am have no idea what you mean by reformed.
But if it's nasty I will get you when you least expect it.

Blind Danny Johnson

benpinnick wrote:

cooldad wrote:

Atz wrote:

Put it this way, 5 of us rode Saturday; 3 on FS, 2 on HT. On average it's clear the HT riders were faster.

That had less to do with bikes than skill, or lack thereof.

Lol, beat me to the punch there.

I definitely realise that the bike doesn't maketh the rider! It's just I had so much fun riding proper downhill trails on a proper downhill bike that I'd like to do as much of it or as close to it as I can.

I also realise that owning a proper downhill bike would be expensive and impractical so I'm just trying to work out what I need in terms of upgrades to my very modest, but so far fun, hardtail to get it to a level where I can really push myself. I found on jumps and drops with the downhill bike that the suspension absorbed alot of the impact and smoothed things out (obviously!) but on my current bike I'd probably not want to try alot of the stuff I was doing on the downhill bike.

For example the drop at Swinley I've seen, up by the resevoir, I would definitely have done on the downhill bike but would be wary on my hardtail because I think the impact would be to heavy. Maybe I'm wrong? Has anyone done this on a hardtail?

cooldad

The one on the left, or the bigger one on the right?

Blind Danny Johnson

cooldad wrote:

The one on the left, or the bigger one on the right?

The bigger one on the right is the one I'm referring to.

benpinnick

Nothing in Swinley _needs_ a full suss, even the big drops, but lots would be easier with it. I have an old hardtail c. 2000 with 100mm Toras on it that I blast around on sometimes, which is adequate for anything in Swinley, if not optimal. Also, you need to consider that alot of 120-140mm suspension bikes (even 100mm ones) would give the same level of 'protection' at Swinley as a DH bike, as you'd never use all 200mm of DH travel around swinley, even casing the biggest drops.