Visiting Swinley Forest - any advice?

joshy2

dsfs

joshy2

Not sure what happened above - I seem to be unable to edit the post.

Anyway, I'm visiting Swinley for the first time on Wednesday with my son. We've booked a few hours bike rental as I'm currently between bikes. Just wondering if anyone had any tips on how to make the most of our visit?

I've read comments on the forum about it being possible to wander around the large space without encountering more interesting trails - but those were from a long time ago (c.2009) and I believe they may have made new trails since.

Thanks in advance,
Josh

wilberforce

Swinley now has three managed grades of trails. Both Green and blue begin from near the bike hire centre at the Lookout, red begins nearly half way through blue. Trail maps are available at https://www.swinleybikehub.com/trails. I have not ridden there since just prior to covid but if riding all blue sections I think it was around 6 miles. There is also unmanaged single track in both Swinley and adjacent Crowthorne woods but not mapped.

dabber

Depends what you're looking for. Red 15 quite nice, Over at the plateau where Red 20 starts there are several other ways down.... Babymaker, Bermastic, Babystalker, Bikini Car Wash. Red 25 is quite nice after you've climbed to the top.

The area around Red 1 was badly damaged in the recent storms and Red 1 didn't exist when I last went a few weeks ago. Swinley isn't generally very well marked.

As mentioned, Crowthorne Woods has some nice trails which aren't marked at all. Getting into that area is, perhaps, best from near the end of Red 5. The Corkscrew is in there somewhere.

Some of Blue has been remodelled with some nice hgh sweepy berms.

Getting around is quite pedally.
Don't know if that helps.

joshy2

Thanks both. I think we'll probably stick to blue trails as it's been a while since we've done any real cycling. I don't have a Garmin so for navigating ones way around, in the absence of signage, does one simply follow the trail / use the GPX file on one's phone? Also, can one venture off the trail and rejoin it ,or does one need to stick to it?

wilberforce

The green trail is only one section, however blue and red are broken into multiple smaller sections so you can leave and rejoin if required. The only challenge in places is to know where the start of the next section is from the end of the previous one. There are colour markers but some are a little way from previous so look for the worn path in the grass/ground or also watch other riders.

joshy2

Well that was great, thanks for all the tips. My son had a fantastic time - his first trail riding experience. We did the blue course and had time to do Red 1-5.

You're right, it was a bit tricky finding the next sections of a course - e.g. it took me a while to find Blue 6 - we ended up finding ourselves near the end at Blue 12 before going back. It's a bit strange to spend all that time making trails and then not signposting or mapping them properly. There were also some diversion signs which really didn't help, and a few people we asked weren't 100% sure where to go either! Anyway, that aside it was all a lot of fun.

The only other niggle was that my son's suspension wasn't working and my front brake was on its way out, which meant I had to take downhill parts carefully - they've given me a free voucher for next time at least.

Look forward to going again!

dabber

Glad it worked out well despite the route marking and bike probs.
I can understand entirely how you went the opposite way when you exited Blue 5, the trouble is the linking broad flat fire roads, which Blue 6 is, aren't really marked at all from what I remember. Btw, if you do it again, when you come out of Blue 5 and turn left onto Blue 6 you can take a nice little diversion that wiggles through the trees sort of parallel to Blue 6 down to Blue 7.

Did Red 1 actually exist now? it was totally destroyed by logging and storm damage.

joshy2

Yeah, we missed that turn to Blue 6 and ended up going up the fire road to Blue 12. Never mind, something to come back to next time!

Think we did actually start from Red 2 - there were diversion signs around where Red 1 started.