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

The new frame sat in my shed for a few months as yet again I rebuilt the Blur for a trip to Wales but having ragged it round Afan etc over a long weekend I started to feel that something still wasn’t quite right with it and I wasn’t as confident as I really should have been on it. So, I priced up getting the 29er built which really only involved getting a set of forks and some wheels, tyres etc plus transferring some bits over from my unused Rockhopper. The forks where another bargain courtesy of Chain Reaction. I knew that I wanted a 100mm travel with a bolt through axle to help with wheel tracking up front so it wasn’t going to be cheap but £250 for a set of Manitou Minutes was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be and managing to snap up an almost new set of Halo Freedom wheels for £120 from a guy over in Brighton meant that before I knew it I was out early on a Friday morning for a quick spin on the new bike.

At this point I would like to say that I have never really felt 100% comfortable on either of the bikes I have owned or any that I have had a demo on but this was something different, I no longer felt perched on top of the bike but felt like it was part of me. Where as before I have felt on steep descents that I am going to land on my nose even with 130mm travel forks the 29er seems, even with 100mm forks, that it can handle whatever I point it down. The climbs in the past have always been a slog and I have quite often lost traction meaning a bit of a hike at times where as the longer wheelbase of a 29er allows for more traction on the climbs which also makes the climbs feel a bit easier than on a normal sized bike and I can now clear some climbs that I have failed to in 2 years of trying. A 29er also rolls a lot easier, I quite often sweep past riders at the bottom of descents on their 26ers without pedalling when they have started to turn the cranks or at least keep up with them where as before I would run out of momentum before them. It’s also a lot more stable when just riding along or at slow speed.

Ok that’s the pros so what about the cons. Well the main one that I was worried about was how it would handle in the singletrack and I have to say that for the first few rides it did feel a little odd but once you get used to the fact that it needs a little more space to turn, and I am only really talking about small amounts here, I feel its even quicker given that I feel more confident on it. So what is it like in the air? Well jumping has never really been high on my list of priorities and I would say that if you want to pop off everything the trail throws at you then you might want to think long and hard before investing in a normal 29er, although longer travel options are starting to appear with fork lengths up to 135mm available, but it will quite happily handle the small hits and kickers I’m likely to go off of and allows me to at least kid myself that I will one day be a freeride god ! The main drawback that I have found is the lack of information that there is on 29er specific items such a tyres, wheels, forks and frames because lets be honest they are the only bits that are different on these type of bikes. However, I have recently discovered that MTBR, which is a US website, have a rather useful 29er forum where riders and industry types can share info on the latest advances in everything 29er related including sneak previews of what the manufacturers have got planned for the coming year and most on-line bike shops have a range of 29er specific stuff, just don’t expect to be able to walk in to your local bike shop and get a choice of tyres, your lucky if they have any at all in some cases.

So to sum up I would say that if you are 5’10” or over it would be worth at least trying a 29er, even if you have previously tried one of the older style frames as they have apparently sorted out some of the issues that early 29ers suffered from. They roll well making them ideal for covering long distances, I loved riding mine at Mayhem and can’t wait to spend 12 hours on it this coming weekend at 24/12. They are stable even at low speed, have good traction when climbing and cornering allowing for quicker ups and downs and are not too shabby in the tighter stuff as well.
Try one, you never know you might like it!

BigSi