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

Sounds good to me.

09:20 to Braknell is the train I look for then?

Think the train goes to Reading but we need to get off at Ascot and change to another train for one stop. Saves us riding alongside a dual carriageway for 2 miles. See you on the train at Clapham junction.

Jon, me and Joe are heading with you guys tomorrow, so are you thinking swinley on the 9:20 from waterloo.
just so i know, as you know how lame Joe is at getting places on time!
hello everyone else, nice to meet you! lookin forward to some mud times in the morning

Cool.

just so i know, as you know how lame Joe is at getting places on time!

Nice one - was just texting Joe to tell him to be on time! If we miss the train then we have to wait another half an hour so see you at Waterloo at about 9ish.

Have a very vague map of the forest so it should be fun times!

cool, i've got one downloaded somewhere i think. i'll have a gander

Sorry lads, I have a few things to do tomorrow. So I wont be able to come with :-(.

I am how ever off for most of next week, so if anyone fancys a mid week ride or somint let me know.

Had a wicked days riding on some sweet singletrack - Swinley is like a maze of awesome little trails with some nice long bits of nicely built singletrack which were fine after the rain. Lots of gnar stuff as well (for object) with some big dirt jumps and some little jumps for pussies like us. It's really easy to get to and we were into decent riding within about a 10/15 minute ride from the station.

This saturday?
And are we talking big doubles or more tabletop type style jumps?

Wish I could of made it. The valve fairies beat me. Glad to hear it was good. Sound like a worth while exploration.

I went for a walk in Kent instead, Started to make a thumb stick and gave myself walkers cock. It's alot better today though.

if you are going to swinley then you need martins heron station not bracknel.
it's only a few minutes ride and there is a cycle route trough a housing estate that gets you to a foot/cycle bridge over the dual carriageway so you don't need to deal with the mahoosive roundabout or any other traffic.

This saturday?
And are we talking big doubles or more tabletop type style jumps?

google swinley jump gully

And are we talking big doubles or more tabletop type style jumps?

The gully has a run of about three tabletops and a lot of kids in nu-rave hoodies hanging about. In the rest of the mountain bike area there's some big drops (around 4-6 foot) onto steep landings and some mountain bike runs with little kickers and drops things which get you pretty far off the ground if you're going fast enough.

if you are going to swinley then you need martins heron station not bracknel.
it's only a few minutes ride and there is a cycle route trough a housing estate that gets you to a foot/cycle bridge over the dual carriageway so you don't need to deal with the mahoosive roundabout or any other traffic.

I didn't fancy either Bracknell or Martins Heron because of all the massive roads so we changed at Ascot and went to Bagshot. Gets you to the other side of Swinley from the visitor centre and so you can go straight to the "expert mountain bike area". Just have to cross a busy road and the rest of it is chilled.

The gully has a run of about three tabletops and a lot of kids in nu-rave hoodies hanging about.
Sounds terrible and the viedo's seem to confirm it.

I'd rather play on fast singletrack with the occasional lip.
Plus to be honest the tables look a little tame, I'll stick to the BMX for dirt jumping.

+1 I prefer a BMX for jumping (epically n my blue mbt) but I do like the big steep bit with the shed at the bottom like we both did at Dorking.

Agreed, mountain bikes are for going somewhere fast and hitting everything in the way that looks fun.

if you will be going to swinley regularly then it is worth copying this route
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2501017
90% bike paths or you could go on the main road (it's fine to cycle along) then switch over to the foot/cycle bridge as the roundabout is a mare with nutters doing 60-70. plus there is a parade of shops next to the cycle route for 'refreshments' on the way home

Nice one, cheers Mr Smith.

+1 I prefer a BMX for jumping (epically n my blue mbt) but I do like the big steep bit with the shed at the bottom like we both did at Dorking.

The jumps in the gully looked shit, but some of the other ones are kinda similar to that big roll in dorking just with a four foot drop at the top. We stuck to the singletrack and it was awesome!

if you will be going to swinley regularly then it is worth copying this route
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2501017
90% bike paths or you could go on the main road (it's fine to cycle along) then switch over to the foot/cycle bridge as the roundabout is a mare with nutters doing 60-70. plus there is a parade of shops next to the cycle route for 'refreshments' on the way home

I've added our route from Bagshot to the map http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2501219 . The end point is a reservoir that's in the middle of the expert mountain bike area. If you head down soon then these maps will be useful. One's a general map and there's two GPS logs which show some of the nice bits of singletrack.

http://www.bobmbc.com/images/swinleyforestmap.jpg
http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~spr00lrd/WebShare/swinleysingletrack.pdf
http://images40.fotki.com/v1262/photos/8/886335/5854622/Swinley190808-vi.jpg

Is anyone interested in offroading tomorrow or has the tweed run stolen everyone this week?

I would have been but drinking is steeling me this w/e.

Sorry ImMe - I'm going through a lazy phase this weekend.

Tommy - when are you free to bivvy the south down way?
Myself and Objet were talking about this yesterday, hows your diary looking?
Also: sat / Sun or could we take one weekday off...?

The tweed ride has scuppered the offrado plans for this week.
Next week fo sho!

Tommy - when are you free to bivvy the south down way?
Myself and Objet were talking about this yesterday, hows your diary looking?
Also: sat / Sun or could we take one weekday off...?

I'll have to check. I'd prefer to wait until the weather is warmer purely because, colder weather = more gear = heavier bike. I could be persuaded to do a cold weather bivi though.

If you don't already have a bivi check out here. I'm getting one as a belated b'day present. Only 388 grams!

Bagsie middle spot between you and Object.