Thank you very much for owning tons of lovely natural heath and woodland in the otherwise crowded South East, and letting us run around all over it as we please.

Yours appreciatively,

Molgrips.

sarcasm alert, sarcasm alert

The RAF have a cracking enduro just south of Bracknell, sandy but good.

agreed!!!

my childhood was spent on MOD land out the back of our house. rediscovering it as an adult on the bike has made me a happier person.

No sarcasm!

Last night instead of riding back to the hotel from work, I rode 200 yards up the road and then spent an hour dawdling all over the woods, finding loads of new stuff and some cool trails. Made it back to the hotel without going near a public highway until the last 1/4 mile 🙂

Also saw loads of other folk (nearer the houses) doing same, on bikes, with dogs, running, or just walking.. and stopped for a chat with three kids who presumably lived in the houses backing onto the land. They wanted to know how much my bike cost…

Molegrips +1

I spend loads of time on the MOD land around Aldershot/Farnborough & am very pleased for it

I might've seen you last night actually since that's where I was.

Dear MOD

Thanks as per what Molgrips said, but when you've been playing with claymores or suchlike, please take away the thin, black, tough, hard to see, tripwires as they can make a right mess if they get caught up in your back wheel, then dragged through your rear mech and round the chain.

they really should make those trip wires easier to see 😐

I wasnt out last night 🙁

Often are a few of us on a Tuesday night probably not next week but as the nights draw in we should be out more 🙂

Drop me an email if you want me to let you know when we are out.. don't expect too fast though

+1

Loads of quality riding on the ranges/heathland 🙂

Thanks GJ, will do 🙂

I seem to remember a documentary in which they commented that trying to observe unspoilt England is almost impossible except for on MOD land as a lot of it is left to run completely wild with only the odd landy or tank puttering by once in a while.

The bit near Aldershot used to be nice woodland however a few years ago they decided to take it back to heath. It is now covered in bloody gorse – which I understand is not a native species so thats a huge backward step as far as I can tell.

Technically it is the MoD (small "o"), and I am sure that they really like having all the nice woodland for their own uses too.

As the man said, mostly unspoilt apart from the occasional steely-eyed dealer of death running round it.

I rode near Aldershot last night – there's lots of woodland. However a lot of it is most definitely not unspoiled. They seem to like driving tanks and jeeps and things all over bits of it, resulting in enormous swathes looking like building sites. Those bits are not good riding, unless you are on an MX bike 🙂

They seem to like driving tanks and jeeps and things all over bits of it,

Shocking behaviour. Worse than green-laners and they think they have some sort of right to destroy vast swathes of the countryside.

Can't say that I have ever seen tanks on that bit. An occasional truck, the best thing was one of those 6 wheel buggies they had in the monkeys although painted green

I've not seen tanks either, I just assumed that level of destruction could only be caused that way 🙂

+1 MOD

not monkeys, Gee, banana splits.

Ok, who else has the Banana Splits theme in their head now? 🙄

Not me, I have 'Thank you for the music' by Abba in there.

Double post. So here's some light music:

So I said thankyou for the music, the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy I'm bringing..

Surely if it's MoD land then it's paid for by the taxpayers, therefore it's our land? 😈 At least that's my stock answer when people ask me if I'm/they're allowed to ride there (Another user of the bit twixt Aldershite & Fleet)

I am pretty sure there are no issues with access. As the law stands only the armys office representative (ie site manager) can tell you to get off & I have chatted to him while out riding.

Banana Splits – quite right, I had the 12 inch single in banana yellow when I was a kit (singles were before cd's for any young peeps out there)

A few years ago on Sealand ranges on the wirral, climbed over the normal height gate, and started cycling along the path, about half a mile on, an Army landrover came screaming up quite fast, headlights on and a few squaddies inside, told me to stop, they said there was live fireing going on, and i had better jump in the back, remembering the old story about getting in strange vans with men i refused and said what happens if i dont.

They just pointed at the rifles they had, and said we will shoot you then 😯 , so i jumped in, nice chaps and a free lift, oh and i didnt get shot, just look out for a red flag flying as a warning of live firing.

cd's for any young peeps

CDs? Aww, bless.. old feller can't keep up 🙂

But yes, all this land around Aldershot and Fleet etc (apart from a bit the other side of Farnborough that is well signposted) has no live firing and you can go wherever you like.

Its not the keeping up that worries me, its not knowing what I have forgotten thats the stressful bit.

Theres also a live fire area at Minley on the Hawley Lake side. Once again well signposted

Dear MOD,

Please thank the RAF for staging a personal air show for us during our ride in the Lake District today. The Hawks and Typhoons were most entertaining. 🙂

The Hawks and Typhoons were most entertaining

We saw a couple of Tornado GR.4s while we were mooching round Ambleside, & then a couple of Tucanos on the drive home (through the Howgill Fells as the M6 was shut 🙄 )

Andy

I've not seen tanks either, I just assumed that level of destruction could only be caused that way

Mastiff

Wolfhound

Husky

Warthog

Maybe it was one of these….

Viking how could I forget this one

That would be cool, I am probably there at the wrong time though when the drivers are in the bar 🙁

Often get soldiers on exercise though, think it pisses them off quite a bit when they are on sentry duty, eyes nice and used to the dark when half a dozen mtbers come through shining lights in their eyes

You forgot Jackal

and Coyote

and not forgeting Ridgback which entered service in Afghanistan Jun 09.

They also let us play with (almost) all of Salisbury Plain! Wooo!

Another user of the Aldershot/Fleet/Farnborough MoD play area.

I understand that they cut down a lot of the tree's based on recommendations from English Nature to create more bio-diverse environment (Hence the cattle). Also to make sure that additional flying could happen safely from Farnborough!

as much as i chuckle when the other-half notices cows and turns into a 6 year old again… the gates do somewhat stop the flow of riding.

Agreed, jolly decent of them to provide the enormous playground/nature reserve of Salisbury Plain, with only the odd mild shelling to contend with. We get real tanks there not those noncy APCs, and better yet helicopter gunships 😀