Aston Hill Mountain Bike Trails https://d145mbeh1pcb1.cloudfront.net/media/reviews/photos/thumbnail/280x280s/43/56/43/243_aston-hill-3-1355578196.jpg Hot

Aston Hill mountain bike trails offer the beginnner through to the advanced downhiller a great play park to cut or hone your teeth on. They also have a decent XC run too. Located on the Bucks/ Herts border it is also neatly acccesible from London. Originally born from the hard work of Ian Warby and crew it is now run by the Aston Hill club who continue to go from strength to strength and invest in new trail development, organise demo days and many a race.

It isn't a MTB trail centre in terms of facilites but there is a car park and a decent food van around most of the time and of course the all necessary portaloo. The trails and friendly helpful atmosphere more than make the journey worthwhile. There is a selection of graded downhill (DH) runs, a 4X track and a two-part cross-country (XC) loop.

The Red Downhill

• The Red downhill is a lovely twisty singletrack with some fun berms. It has some off-camber rooty sections and technical switchbacks and great for beginner downhillers.

The Black Downhill

• The Black starts of tame moving into a truly beautiful berm (take with lots of speed)and then you traverse along through roots for a bit. Shortly you hit, roots, more roots, drops and tight corners. It's the oldest of the trails, the favourite of many and the steepest. 

The DH3

• The DH3 is more technical and challenging than the red. It starts with a flat route in and a little kicker followed by some jumps. Next it covers into a really rooty and steep section. Turning the corner you hit a sweet drop. From then on it is pure speed. It has off-camber sections and rooty drops, before a set of tighter switchbacks at the end. It is the fastest of all the trails.

Surface To Air

• Surface to Air is the latest new course (see vid below). It is a flowing downhill course with berms and a multitude of drops and steps.

Root Canal 

• This is the race course used for the 2009 Southern Downhill Championships

The 4X

• The 4X course, has doubles and table tops, and a road gap two thirds near the bottom

The Cross Country

• The cross-country (XC) loop is around 5-6 miles and is in two parts. It is rooty singletrack and you go through some nice forest. It has some steep climbs so not really do able on a downhill bike unless you are prepared to walk a bit.  The end section is the red downhill run so it gets tight and steep with some great corners. Halfway down the Red Run you are offered two choices – to continue with the Red Run, through the bus stop and into the switchbacks before either dropping onto the fire road or rolling along the boardwalk, or to take the climb that leads into the new section, swooping back through some carving turns to join the boardwalk at the bottom of the hill.

• You can get maybe 8 - 12 runs in on a day of downhilling as there is a good 20 minute walk up each time.

Closest Bike Shop

• Mountain Mania, Tring 

Coaches and Guides

• Firecrest MTB

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• If you do get to ride this trail centre at Aston Hill then why not share your experience with us and write a short review?

Credits

• Big thanks to the crew at Aston Hill for allowing us to pilfer some of their best shots.