I'm impressed!

FishFish

I was in Thetford today - well I live here so that is no surprise. Saw a bloke on a road bike with drop handlebars doing the red route including the Beast of England. Well impressed. Saw him afterwards too and he had a flash road type bike with 1.5 inch tyres and hydraulic disks - looked impressive and expensive! Thetford is not difficult but the Beast takes no prisoners.

njee20

That be a cyclocross bike. They're more than capable for most trails, if not the quickest.

I'd ride Thetford Beast on my road bike though!

rockmonkeysc

Cyclo-cross bikes can do anything a mountain bike can do, including technical trails and jumps.
The beast at Thetford would be graded as a blue trail if it was anywhere else. Giving that a black grading is a joke.
joke.

philcubed

I was there a few years ago with my mate and our sons, thinking we were great getting an inch or two of air riding through the bombholes, when a guy on a unicycle rode past, putting us in our place! (He did have a mtb tyre on his unicycle though)

Monty Dog

Ridden all the red and black at Glentress and Innerleithin on a CX bike - hucking down Caddon Bank 'blind' is a fair test of commitment as well as the black descents which basically involve a controlled slide over roots'n'rocks! Did get a few funny looks from MTB riders.....but it was worth it to rail the berms down Spooky Woods

FishFish

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19716637#p19716637]RockmonkeySC[/url] wrote:

The beast at Thetford would be graded as a blue trail if it was anywhere else. Giving that a black grading is a joke.
joke.

The beast would never be rated blue anywhere and it was downrated from black to red a couple of years ago. I agree that the rest of the red route is a bit tame but the bomb holes and the beast are red. And I am impressed by people riding a CX on a red route!

rockmonkeysc

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19717394#p19717394]FishFish[/url] wrote:

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19716637#p19716637]RockmonkeySC[/url] wrote:

The beast at Thetford would be graded as a blue trail if it was anywhere else. Giving that a black grading is a joke.
joke.

The beast would never be rated blue anywhere and it was downrated from black to red a couple of years ago. I agree that the rest of the red route is a bit tame but the bomb holes and the beast are red. And I am impressed by people riding a CX on a red route!

It's a blue. There is nothing in it even worth being a red trail. Bike Park Wales has tougher blue trails. Verders at Forest of Dean is at least as technically difficult. The bomb holes aren't even steep.

FishFish

Actually your boring opinionated negativity is the sort of thing why this site has bad reviews. Your response to virtually anything is subjective negative and self opinionated. Can't say what I think but this site may improve if you just stopped posting and that the culture of posts was allowed to be more oriented towards a positive disposition towards mtb activity.

rockmonkeysc

Im positive that trail should be blue. Ride just about anywhere in Wales, up north or Scotland and try a red or black trail.
How is that negative? I didn't say it wasn't any good, just that the grading was way off.

ilovedirt

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19717463#p19717463]FishFish[/url] wrote:

Actually your boring opinionated negativity is the sort of thing why this site has bad reviews. Your response to virtually anything is subjective negative and self opinionated. Can't say what I think but this site may improve if you just stopped posting and that the culture of posts was allowed to be more oriented towards a positive disposition towards mtb activity.

Granted he doesn't usually put his opinion forward in a constructive way, however I find it hard to believe that anything in east anglia could be graded anything harder than a blue.

paul.skibum

I just watched a couple of vids of the "black route" at Thetford. Blue valley trails in Whistler are more technical for sure. Black trails here would push that trail over and steal its lunch money.

rockmonkeysc

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19718174#p19718174]paul.skibum[/url] wrote:

I just watched a couple of vids of the "black route" at Thetford. Blue valley trails in Whistler are more technical for sure. Black trails here would push that trail over and steal its lunch money.

Don't be so negative. Thetford should be re-graded as a double black.

Briggo

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19717463#p19717463]FishFish[/url] wrote:

Actually your boring opinionated negativity is the sort of thing why this site has bad reviews. Your response to virtually anything is subjective negative and self opinionated. Can't say what I think but this site may improve if you just stopped posting and that the culture of posts was allowed to be more oriented towards a positive disposition towards mtb activity.

I used to live in Norwich and rode Thetford plenty, its a blue at best.