Any closures there at the mo? Thinking of heading down Sunday. Also, what’re the DH tracks like at the moment?

Ta!

At Stile Cop the end drops on the Black are shut and part of Mega trail is shut. Think everything else is open. No reason its not riding well, rest of the Chase is pretty dry.

The hill’s fine, the trail on the Darkside now have a decent covering of leaves and we won’t be up to clear them for another couple of weeks.

As Scruff says end of the Black and part of the Mega Trail are closed plus Balboa is shut. The rest of the trails are open.

Sweet, not been there before, looking forward to have a play. Is Stile Cop an easy detour off the Monkey?

Shredded it last night, and the Werewolf Drop is open too.

Go down Upper Cliff, onto fireroad, at the start of Lower Cliff climb where the big log is, instead of continuing ahead onto waymarked climb you go right and short up then left into Mifflins Valley, this will take you to the bottom of the DH runs.

Ace, cheers Scruff.

Last time I was there I think I got stuck in the Werewolf drop with my silly wide bars. I now have wider bars. This does not bode well…

I might have a play on some of the easier downhill runs on Saturday.

Is it usually really busy on those tracks as not knowing them I can’t say I’ll be particularly quick.

I will be busier on Saturday, Racers Guild is on so one or more tracks will be reserved for timed practise.

Probably give it a miss then, ta

Is that Saturday and Sunday? Or just Sat?

Just Sat. It may just be one track taken out of action, depends on what track is used.

Cool cool. Ta very much.

They should have all the bodies and busted bikes cleared away by Sunday.

We’ll just add some fresh ones in then!

Well that was fun! Did the Dog and the Monkey (highlighting my shocking lack of fitness) – particularly enjoyed the last two descents on the Monkey, lovely and fast. Then drove over to Stile Cop whereby my riding buddy managed to fall off just after the first corner on the red DH, mashing himself up badly enough that we only had the one run. Lovely track though, definitely need a day sessioning there in summer.

IMHO the Red is a bit of a cruel intro to downhill; it’s fast, loose surfaced and mostly fairly blind due to being in a tunnel created variously from the banks and greenery. There are also big enough obstacles to get non-DH/XC people into serious difficulty.

It occupies arguably the prime long, fast line on the hill, so regulars want the trail builders to get the most from it, but that does mean the transition from riding red/black XC over to DH is steep.

Yeah I can see that actually, before we set off we were chatting to a chap at the top who said to take it steady first run as there are a fair few “proper” features. Kris just fell off ‘cos he’s a prat, but I guess if you head there straight from the trail centre stuff it is a bit of a step up. I remember thinking “I’m glad I can just about do drops” a couple of times.

I have ridden a few real DH places (Wharncliffe being the main one) so I always take things really steady first run to get my eye in on anything advertised as downhill, but if it’s been promoted as another option to the trail centre I can see there being problems.

Also, any excuse to post this again:

[video]http://youtu.be/3pQ94gboy2s[/video]

He’s more or less fine, sore shoulder but nothing broken.