Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

You want to get yourself to the section of forest between Buckhurst hill and Loughton for a nice bit of downhill singletrack. It runs down a hill From Buckhurst Hill towards Loughton, inbetween the high road and epping new road, so the best way to access it is to come out the top of palmerston road in buckhurst hill, turn right onto the high road, and swing a left at the next available turn off to get into the forest, (there's a few roads that lead there).

left my glasses at roding lane school (5-a-side pitches) on monday, so decided to bike it down (fixed) from wanstead.. nice journey there all downhill but back up from loughton was a nightmare.
will have to check that route back (but not on fixed).

Of road looks awesome fun... : )

I'm going tomorrow. Anyone know if that Dorking route is pretty self explanatory or I am gonna get lost without a map?

are you getting a train down? you do know there are bus replacement services on some routes and trains start from raynes park on the waterloo-C-junction-wimbledon line this sunday.

bugger, no i didnt know that

looks like we are going to epping again

Bumping this thread again because I'm planning to go out next Saturday (ie the 16th) with Brooklyn Jack Crank to show him what the countryside looks like. Anyone who wants to come too is welcome. Anyone who can lend him a bike is even more welcome!

You knows it momentum. Call me / mail me in the week.

Awesome! Was just about to PM you but you're too fast!

Gonna take the gears off my bike and ride SS as my only training ride before SSUK. Thinking that we can do something around the Dorking Hills but maybe try something a bit different from the normal loop but which still finishes at the pub in Coldharbour followed by the lovely singletrack back to Dorking. What do you reckon?

You know I'm easy. Get Prav out too.

I'm on it! After my masterful PM I'm sure he'll come!

Dam just realised I'm working Saturday 16th morning. Sorry.

Tommy, quit your job.

Ha! If I did that I would not be riding round Surrey, I go riding single track in Scotland and bag a few Munros while I was up there. A bit like this guy.

That sucks dude - maybe you'll feel a bit sniffly on Friday 15th and wake up with a touch of the swine flu on the Saturday?

Now that this has come up again, anyone going to SSUK09? My girlfriend is going away, and my Scandal is getting built up so I'm thinking it could be on.

Anyone enetring the singlespeed class at Beastway ? 4 races on Weds evenings in July.

Now that this has come up again, anyone going to SSUK09? My girlfriend is going away, and my Scandal is getting built up so I'm thinking it could be on.

Me, Tommy and Provenrad are going. Search for ssuk on here and there's a couple of threads

knobject, we going dorking this sat? I wanna do summer lightning again.

I have two answers to that question dependent entirely on the postal service.

Yes or No - Place your bets now.

A bit off topic this but I'm planning on joining some friends on a bit of an off road ride. The route is mud tracks (should be nice and hard at the moment), flint tracks and some grass bits. I was thinking on riding it on my polo bike, it has a 32mm tyre on the back and a 28mm up front. Am I going to fail massively or should I be ok?

you can ride anything anywhere if you got the skills, with that though you mentioned flint..could be a rapid descent into a puncture nightmare with slick tyres, you can run conti twisters and stuff like that and get away with it on big wheels tho,
go for it! after all, when Gary Fisher said 'lets invent a 29 er' he just wanted to go faster off road so used bigger wheels.
only other thing is, er, brakes could be handy if theres any downhilling.

I've got a front brake and both tyres are hardly worn randonneurs so I'm hoping they will offer a fair amount of puncture protection. I think I'll just go along and see what happens, cheers.

Ahoy, sorry not talking about a ride, but converting my Orange to SS

Think I must be pretty thick not to know this, but I simply tried to swap over a rear wheel from my Stove only to find that the axle is too short. Obvious now but the cartridge means the frame is much wider there on a geared bike, d'oh. Can I replace the axle with a longer one? I can't be arsed to convert a MTB wheel, particularly since I have a SS rear. Any pointers?

Longer axle + washers.

OLD (over locknut dimension)

Mtb spacing 135 mm
Fixed /single speed 120 mm
Road modern 130 mm
Road old 126 mm

Be careful of chainline though. I could not run a 42 mm chainline on my mtb unless the chainring was very small due to the chainstay.