Mountain Bike Adventure in UK

Thanks Welshkev, I'm thinking of just staying in the Quantocks and then heading to Exmoor on the way home for this trip but will be up Wales soon for my helping of BPW so will try The Gap when there. Any advice on the Quantocks, Smith Combe looks pretty fun.

Cheers delaxm, really looking forward to it now, heard great things. I also just bought Nick Cottons guide to South West Mountain Biking and its got really well detailed rides in the Quantocks and Exmoor so will be doing few of these.
Thanks again bud.

chrisw333 wrote:

Vulva

Please come back and let me know what you think of the Quantocks & Exmoor routes in that article.

Thanks for the tips on accommodation. I think we'll probably be looking for B&B's though, camping is a bit too much faff when I'm that tired.

I don't blame you Chris, B&B sounds lovely but if I camp then I get to save my pennies for more bike stuff

Will let you know how I get on with these rides. Also if you're ever looking for an all day epic then I highly recommend Nant-yr-Arian in Wales, long old 40ish miler and you go properly into the wild (don't see any roads, houses, people for majority of it!)....just make sure you take plenty of food and water as there definitely aren't any pubs or shops on route.

Cheers!

Okay so for anyone who is thinking of going, I managed to survive the weekend and didn't do nearly as many miles as we were hoping for.
The Saturday we rode the Quantocks and only managed a 18.8 mile ride, but this included 2,600ft of climbing, a lot of which was VERY steep stuff that we had to push the bikes up. The downhills through Smiths Combe and Hodders Combe were totally worth it though, and the views were incredible up there, could see right over to Wales.

Sunday I was a little worse for wear due to some Somerset cider, so we took it easy and went down to Kilve Beach for some fossil hunting...because I'm officially old.

On Monday it was pissing it down but we still decided to venture up to Dunkery Beacon in Exmoor N.P, this was an even smaller ride of just 12.8 miles, but with 2,400ft of climbing it was bloody tough, especially in the rain and wind....we also had the added joy of being swarmed by hundreds of horse flies which did not leave us alone whenever we stopped, legs are now covered in bites! We had been advised the view from the top was not to be missed but when we reached the top we were surrounded in mist and couple barely see 5ft in front of us which was very disappointing but the downhill back into Horner was awesome and so we ended on a high.

Both campsites, Moorhouse Farm in Quantocks and Burrowhayes Farm in Horner were brilliant and right on the footsteps of where are planned riding routes were....Burrowhayes had a gate leading directly into the national park.

All in all it was a fun weekend of riding with some great downhills and some bastards of hills...I'm never going to complain about the hills in Cornwall again!

chrisw333 wrote:

Thanks for reporting back Vulva - sounds tough!

Did you try to follow any particular route on the Quantocks (eg the MBR route) or did you just follow your nose?

We just went on the viewranger app and downloaded a couple of free routes from the app, it worked wonders as the app still tracked our location even when we had no signal so we were able to see where we were at all times...just make sure you're fully charged!