Sussex-MTB

This one was posted a bit late so it was no surprise that only 5 of us turned up at The Lookout car park on the outskirts of Swinley Forest, Bracknell just after 10.30 last Saturday. The weather was changeable and the remains of the previous 2 weeks snow was clear to see but looked to be melting fast so rain or not this one was going to be wet.

After my normal amount of faffing (double most peoples) we were ready to role and headed out of the car park and straight in to the singletrack which seemed to be a lot clearer than the fireroads which still had about 2” of snow across them.

Chilly riders

We started out along some of the singletrack that I had been shown by one of the locals when I did the Singletrackworld forum ride in November last year. This took us out towards “The Corkscrew” over Caesar’s Camp way where we stopped for a play on some of the jumps and natural drop ins and Hummerlicious got to grips with the Marin Attack Trail he had borrowed for the weekend from Quest Adventures and as his report shows, he quite liked it.

Jumpin' Jimbo

After a few photos and a bit of tuition from Hummerlicious we decided to head off and started out towards one of the newer trails that Swinley has to offer which I have called “The Berm Trail”. It’s not much to look at as you stand at the entrance but after about 500m of mud and roots the armoured singletrack begins. This has some fantastic berms and even a shore bridge in it and is worth seeking out just for the first of these berms which needs to be taken as fast as possible in order to be able to whip round the 2nd of the berms which comes straight after the first one. None of us managed to master this as the photos show.

CTD

Jo

Dougal

BigSi

Popping back out on the fireroad we hung a left then first right in to my favourite Swinley trail “Tank Traps”. It’s a nice long section of singletrack running round the side of a ridge. Open and flowing at first it ends in a series of switchbacks with exposed roots all over them and today a stream running along the bottom of the gully which meant that keeping speed was a bit of an issue.

By the time we had finished these sections the effort of pedalling through the slush and mud was starting to tell and Bikerbabe, who had not been seen on a bike since I don’t know when, looked like she needed coffee & cake. It was decided that we would head on over to “Labyrinth” and then back to The Lookout car park.

On the way over to “Labyrinth” we hit the singletrack that runs around the downhill course and I have to say it gets better each time I ride it although I think that I have found a weakness in the 29er. It doesn’t handle tight technical rooty downhill’s too well but that could just be the rider, still it’s a good excuse to look at getting another bike in the near future and yes it will still be a 29er.

Labyrinth

We finally make it to Labyrinth via the wall climb rather than the more acceptable but longer “Deer Stalker” trail. With hardly a break at the top we set off down the trail that runs to the left and has more berms but fewer jumps when compared to the right hand trail but we did still manage to find plenty of water in between the final two table tops. At the crossroads which signals the start of the long singletrack section I some how managed to get in front of Hummerlicious, Dougal and my other riding buddies, CTD & Bikerbabe. I was going to pull over and let Hummerlicious & Dougal past but instead decided to put the hammer down and see how long I could sensibly keep them behind me. I didn’t want to hold them up but I also didn’t want to let them past me before we got to the end. I soon found that I could pull away on the flatter sections but was being reeled in by Hummerlicious on the short downhill sections as he was really flying when the Attack Trail was pointing downwards. We soon got to the end with massive grins on our faces, soaking wet from the massive puddles we had been ploughing through and completely knackered.

Looking at my watch I was surprised to see that we had been out for 4 hours and were at the furthest point of the forest from The Lookout so there were no arguments when it was decided it was time for coffee & food. We pointed the bikes along the fireroad and headed for the cars.

30 minutes later we were clearing the café out of its cake supply & still grinning.

BigSi