Mountain Biking Swinley in the Mud
Headed down to Swinley on Sunday with Gareth (i4_uk) and met up with Tom (Tomallan) some of his mates (the two Dave's and Travis) from the friendly EppingHardCru folks..
It was a typical wet and rainy March day. Still saying that Swinley car park was pretty busy at 9.30am. Dedicated bunch us mountain bike riders I'm thinking
I'll try and bring out the best bits of the route but I was pushing myself to keep up as Tom led us on this really varied route so I think what is much better is to post the Map (thanks from Dave) and the GPS co-ordinates (I can't post the latter but I have the place-mark so if anyone wants it PM me and I can email on).
Tom led the way leading us out right from the visitors centre by the Go Ape gate. We turned right and headed into the forest on the left. After some muddy singletrack the route took us to a section I believe they call "Jump Gulley". This has sweet drops where Tom put us all to shame as he did them with ease. Then back through the forest through some lovely berms sections onto another area near the reservoir with a great steep descent with roots and drops thrown in for good measure. It was super muddy so we all took it reasonably slow but still a contagious grin at the end.
We headed up to the top by the reservoir where there are maybe 4 or 5 downhill routes. We sessioned the same one a few times in the middle. It has some tight corners, lovely berms, a few tabletops and a triple. All tons of fun. On the second session we took a turning to the right which is one of the best sections I have done at Swinley. It goes up, down and up and down turning corners like they were going out of fashion. With hidden depth to the puddles that sometimes plummeted your front wheel and strategically deviously placed tree stumps it is tough, fast, testing and just awesome . Ends to a nice steep little end you need to keep your eyes pealed for as it closes to a flat you need to position back on the bike right. The other runs I know to be fun too.
Then we headed into berm city again and through some lovely singletrack dodging roots and tree stumps all over the place then over a short bit of pedestrian highway to the Look out for tea and burgers.
Few technical probs and couple of stacks but overall pretty incident free.
Tom promised us it drains wells in Swinley. This isn't true but not entirely a lie
...as it is a sand base, so although it is muddy as hell the ground holds well. really rained down and was a little slidey but that only added to the buzz!
Swinley is quickly becoming my favourite around London place. We rode for about 2.5 hours and the time flew. We only did about 10miles but mainly as we stopped and sessioned lots. Dave mapped the route on his Garmin and wins the prize for getting uphill without flinching. I really need to get more commuting in during the week to train more for the weekends.
Rained most of the time but a great day..amazes me not more people bike!!
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Anyways... Don't you just love GPS's!!. Here is a graph from a bike mounted Garmin from Dave..of our journey last Sunday. It shows speed, elevation travelled and distance. Means nothing to me but is cool.
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