Redlands Trails

Roll on Summer

On Leith Hill
Originally uploaded by bent udder.

Suncream in April and a very toasty warm ride yesterday. I'm still a bit staggered at our recent warm spell.

However, part of em is also hoping for a bit of rain. The ground has dried out fast, and it's meant a lot more sand than usual. On top of that, it's going to make trail building very difficult indeed. Anything we dig will fall to bits before it's had a chance to bed in.

The plus side, of course, is more time spent riding instead.

Building on Sunday, May 13th

We'll be working on the new section of Summer Lightning on Sunday, May 13th. The new (still mostly secret) section is oh-so-almost finished, and we hope to finally get this new bit of trail opened as a result of this build day. Every last little bit of help will be needed to reach this goal, so if you can make it along for the whole day, or even half an hour, you'll be helping to open up another couple of hundred metres of trail!

Gavin, Mark and the Davids will be on site from 10am - just ride to the end of Summer Lightning and listen for the sound of all the tools being unloaded. Dave is going to put some signs out to make it easier to find the trail work on the day, so keep an eye out for posters on the trail markers.

Once we're finished with this section of Sumemr Lightning, we plan to do two more things. We're hoping to add a great new ending to BKB, laid out by probably the best trail designer in the area. Secondly, we're going to do a lot more work on the boggy bit of Summer Lightning to make it fast and furious.

Come along on Sunday and help out, and we'll get all this shiny new trail done a load quicker! We will be providing tools and work gloves, as usual - all you need to bring along is food water and yourselves. If you've got some strong boots, that's always handy, too.

See you there!

MBR magazine poll

Reading the April issue of MBR on the train this morning (its the issue with North and South Downs rides in it) I noticed the Riders Poll was taken in Peaslake.

Only 4 riders feature, so its hardly the most extensive survey ever under taken, but the fact that all 4 riders have London addresses just goes to show/prove how riders from the capital make up the vast majority of the traffic on trails in the North Downs. With London's population around the 6 million mark and cycling and mountain biking increasing in popularity, it adds to the reasons for taking the time to care for the trails (man made and non) in the area.

Goings on at Winterfold and Hurtwood

there's been a lot of speculation in the usual places about some things going on over at Pitch and Holmbury hills. There's three main things: a recent survey of mountain bikers, rumours (from one source, as yet unconfirmed) of a local resident's campaing to ban mountain bikers and another (also unconfirmed) rumour of a freeride park in Winterfold woods.

The survey was undertaken by Hurtwood Control. The Control's main remit is to encourage use of the land it manages by lots of people - and that includes mountain bikers. A ban on mountain biking would be very difficult to set up and even more difficult to impose.

Guildford BC's planning department has not received an application for change of use for Winterfold Woods. The planning bod for that area, Tim Dawes, very kindly checked for me and confirmed this.

As for a local resident's campaign, we're not aware of one, and the only source of this so far has been one person who hasn't added any information to their first report. We'll have to wait and see. That said, a ban on mountain biking would essentially be impossible to implement and completely unenforcable, as we've said above. There are other ways of managing trail conflict that work far better and also help maintain the economic benefit that mountain bikers bring to the area.

Learnie is lesson in over built

Learnie Red Rocks is one of a spate of new purpose built trails in Scotland and one of the most northerly man made trails in the UK. Luckily some work sent me to Invergordon recently, so the 10 hour drive from Dorking to just north of Inverness was made with the hardtail in the boot.

Like Summer Lightning and more specifically the 7 Stane trails, Learnie is built on Forestry Commission land and has been open for one year. On our Saturday visit the trail was well used. But what's it like to ride? There are Green, Blue, Red and Black trails at Learnie and my feeling is that the Blue and Red trails, which are of most interest to cross country riders are over built.

There is some nice flow, a switch back or two and the decent back to the car park is great fun with table tops that really push you and frame into the air, but the overall feel of the entire route is one of being too road like, yes its quick, but lacks challenge. There is never a moment when you have to concentrate on the line ahead or suddenly have to fight the bike (I was riding an ali hardtail, a good full sus would feel more akin to cycle path cruising).

The Black Run began with one of the most extreme drops, its like riding down the tight stair case of a castle and was not built with my type of riding in mind, so I won't pass too much judgement on the Black.

Learnie is well worth visiting though because the Black Isle is a fantastic part of Scotland, the views across the Firth are incredible and I was treated to wheeling Osprey above my head. This type of trail centre allows you to ride with little local experience. But it is an exercise in over building and reminds us why roots are great fun.