getting out of London...

ramblingjon

I live in east London so looking to escape the city for a weekends riding…

So with a max 3 hour drive where do people consider the best riding to be found?

Anonymous

Surrey Hills is one of the best places in the south of England.

There's also Swinley Forest a bit further west by Bracknell. 3 hours from east London, at a push you might make south Wales but pushing it. South Wales has places like Afan and Cwmcarn amongst a few other official trail centres.

Bedgebury in Kent is another option, though not been there myself yet.

All kinds of other little bits and pieces dotted around, but definitely Surrey Hills is the best for me. Depends what riding you're into though. If you want some downhill stuff, check out Aston Hill (and Cwmcarn DH in Wales). Relatively tame with not much climbing then Swinley might be better (though it has some more serious bits as well if you want).

Take a look at the London Calling thread also under the Rides. Bunch of folk in the London and nearby area basically just organising informal rides. That and talking garbage.

benpinnick

More like talking rubbish with the odd ride thrown in for good measure.

cooldad

Ben speaks the truth.

blablablacksheep

Surrey Hills is one of the best places in the south of England.

wheres a good place exactly in surry hills to MTB?

might go down there once the M25 clears :roll:

Chad_c_Mulligan

I have a question about Swinley Forest.

I went there with a group of people last Sunday and I was on a 'cross bike and we went in search of the 'expert area' and the jump gulley.

1) Is the jump gulley in the 'expert area'?
2) Is the expert area just that flowing/twisty singletrack through the trees?

Another concern we had was the complete lack of direction signs on the trails, which considering the amount of blind corners was a worry. Were we missing something?

Did we just miss the signs differentiating trails from paths for walkers? It was quite a surprise coming round some corners.

Finally, given the amount of people with big full suss bikes and full face helmets were we missing something? We found trails which were a bit iffy for a cross bike but nothing that couldn't easily be done with a short travel HT.

If there is something we've missed I'll definitely go back and give it another go.

Anonymous

The "expert" area is just a big area towards the back of the forest. Pretty much starts where the jump gully is. Go up the hill to the covered reservoir and beyond and it's all round that way.

Basically around there are jumps, drops and DH runs. Drops of varying sizes including fairly big. The big drops are where the DH rig guys hang out.

Swinley is not the kind of place you'd normally take the big rig and armour too, but there are things to be found where you can use it if you want. Think they must push the bikes all the way though to get there though

Otherwise, even in most of the expert area, regular trail or all mountain full-sus bikes are fine, as are hard tails.

Directions, you won't find any. The arrangement with the Crown Estate is supposedly they aren't allowed to advertise the trails. The official maps show little other than where the expert area is.

But there are maps like this: http://www.calcot.plus.com/swinleysingletrack2.jpg

And yes, you can find walkers, families, runners, and dogs on the bike trails, even though some are plainly obvious they're for bikes. There are no limits though on who uses what except for a couple of conservation areas which are in theory off limits to bikes.

Try too keep out during the busy periods and it's not so much of a problem. Generally you won't find them in the "expert" area though, but have come across hill runners up Labyrinth.

Chad_c_Mulligan

Thanks so much for that map.

We went down stickler past the tank traps and it seemed fun but tame.

I can now see that there was a huge area we didn't see and need to explore.

cooldad

As DK said, keep an eye on London Calling, welcome to join in and have a guided tour.

ramblingjon

Thanks for the feedback DK – I’ve ridden all the Welsh Trail centres – Cwmcarn is just about doable from my gaff in 3 hours.

Basically I just wanted to know if there were any hidden gems a bit closer to home! I’ve ridden Swinley once but found it frustrating trying to piece together a good loop.

Will check out Bedgebury & Surrey hill though!

Cooldad – let me know if you guys are planning to ride Swinley & if it’s cool I’ll tag along with you guys for a guided tour!

benpinnick

Heres a good loop for you:



You can add other bits too, but this covers most of the good trails.

Anonymous

The option we did at the weekend, down Rollercoaster and then along to Car Crash Moor with a bit of up at the end was good too. Hadn't considered it going that way, but like going down Rollercoaster.

ramblingjon

ben - cheers for the map that looks wicked. roughly how long is that loop?

benpinnick

Its 12km or maybe 12 miles - I cant remember which. Definitely 12 though.

cooldad

12 miles sounds more heroic.

benpinnick

Sat nav magic phone says 12 miles (including slight detour via new England switchbacks)

ramblingjon

sounds like a good loop - thanks again

agg25

Thanks for the map, I go here quite a bit and it is hard to link up a good run more than a few miles, maybe we can get some times up ;-)

agg25

I just did the whole route yesterday, took a while as there was a few places I hadn't been before and a few forks in the trail where I had to check the map and phone but I got there in the end after about 2 hours. I accidentally added one bermy section near the stickler which was awesome so I'd keep it in there and did the Labyrinth (now my favourite spot in Swimley) twice, apart from that followed it to a tee.
So, thanks, gave me heaps more places to go next time, I have a route I can follow now and I've gotten to know Swinley a lot better.
I mapped it all out using Endomondo, if anyone wants to use it or download it to their phone you can look here ->
http://www.endomondo.com/routes/30979176
When you're within 5 kms of the route it will show up in the Endomondo app as Agg's Swinley Trail or something like that.