as above. want to head over there tommorow, but heard horror stories about aston in the wet, wondering how its holding up?

thanks

Planning a trip in a week but I think if it’s still wet I might chicken out and go somewhere easy 🙂

thanks

anyone???

It will be very slippery! If you go wearing armour, saddle low and ready to get loose you may have fun. If you are not wearing armour, have your saddle at XC height and are clipped in you probably wont. It is good practice, but will have a high risk of ending on your arse!

pssed it down all night and it was already wet here yesterday.

I went after a load of rain last year. I lasted about 30 mins & prob 6 slips/falls.

Met a guy in the car park who hadn’t even bothered unloading his bike; he wandered off on foot, had a look, got back in his car & went home.

It’s slippy in the wet, probably the slipperyest(?) place I’ve ever ridden. I loved it in the dry.

bucketed down all night, so it will be slippery

that might well have been me reevil :o)

I’m planning to head over there on Sunday as it’s stopped raining over this way now and the sky’s nice and blue so hoping it will dry out a little!

Would be interested to hear how it was today if you made it in the end.

i did make it and it was unbelievably slippery, but for that reason i loved it. was some of the most difficult riding i think i have ever done. great day, and would fully recommend it in the wet to everyone. well not everyone, but if your experienced anyway.

I went on Sunday and it was slippery but far from unrideable. Was far busier that I’ve ever seen it before which was nice to see, and a new first timers seemed rather taken aback by the lack of traction!

I really enjoyed it and found there to be a lot more grip than you expected – a couple of rooty sections demanded a careful line, no braking and a bit of luck, but I managed seven runs with no offs and only 2 dabs (both times when a mate dabbed in front of me) and looking back at the Go Pro footage, my times weren’t massively slower than my dry times from last year.

I’ve ridden it wet a few times, My advice is to go prepared, i.e. wet weather kit/tyres, and take plenty of food/drink (as the burger van may be a no show, and riding in the wet/cold seems to fatigue you more IME) Ease into it, maybe ride some of the not so steep lines first to get your eye in…

The thing with Aston hill is that it’s got a mixture of surfaces for you to deal with, the loamy bits and some of the dusty (when dry) sections can still be quite grippy in the wet, but then roots and chalky stuff can catch you out and your grip just breaks away almost at random, and it takes a good couple of dry, warm days to drain the hill out properly I reckon, plus it it gets a frost on with lots of moisture held in the ground it becomes even less predictable, some bits will just have a sort of surfce crust of ice that once you get through you have some pretty good grip, other bits are just like black ice you can’t see it but it will cause a slip, then you end up actually looking for where the sun is falling to find part thawed ground that sometimes yields more grip…

And that’s precisely why you should ride it in adverse weather, to get you used to reading the trail conditions and it allow you some practise, to learn how to react to it all a bit better, I may schedule myself a visit there this coming weekend now you’ve mentioned it actually, just for a bit of a cack weather practise session…

I must say I think it’s a great venue, i’ve yet to ride it in the wet/damp but i’m possibly going next weekend so I doubt it’ll be bone dry!

The variety of stuff there is amazing considering how small an area the hill covers, plus its really steep considering how flat the surrounding area is- plus i’ve yet to ride anything other than DH3 and the red descent so there is more stuff to grow-into so to speak 🙂

Not been up for ages but remember in the Chilterns if there has been any humidity in the air at any time in the last 6 months it will be claggy as hell.

Any ideas of what its like this week? we are thinking of a first time on Saturday.

well it bucketed down last night and is due to again on Friday.

you will need a love of the ground and as much padding as you own and probably a change of clothes for the drive home.

If you hang fire a couple of weeks, the new trail, surface2air is being opened on the 28th iirc. Still gonna be steep and slipery when wet, but looks a little more ‘surfaced’ and a little less ‘OMG roots OMG chalk’ than the existing trails

even the push back up is tough in the wet. MTFU and i will see you there.

we will be doing the xc route, the two with the full sussers may do the dh, however they dont have padding.

any thoughst on the xc then?

I rode there on Sunday, I’ve ridden there quite a lot in all weathers throughout the year and it was very slippery, as slippery as I’ve known it.

Stuck to the drop at the bottom of the Black run in the end, the push up in the cold is hard work!

you can play on the upper parts of the xc, bombholes, 4X and the first part of DH3 without going all the way to the bottom,

but you wont be able to resist the xc/red dh at least once, then your choice is winch up the xc, or push up the path

take hot chocolate and cake to leave in the car

Rode it last wend with my riding buddy who’d not been before; I was raving how great it was so he came to see what all the fuss was about. We were both a little wide eyed after the first very slippery run… But we relaxed into it and had a great day. As said the top half of dh3 is pretty grippy and root free so I quite enjoyed sessioning that and building up the speed. First time riding the 4x which was fun although I’m not good enough/confident enough to clear all te jumps 🙁

Really want to try the black run but I think I’ll wait till drier weather as its proper steep compared to dh3!!

What’s the word on surface2air; is it going to be as steep as the black or more relaxed?

surface 2air opens on 28th

Kimbers. We need to go and ride that if we get a small bit of dry weather

All the runs are great in the wet. High volume sticky tyres at low pressures is all you need.

Right, we are going! What tyres? Got high rollers or shawlbe mud spike, not going to entertain maxi cross marks!

Considering a day at AH tomorrow, has anyone been there in the past couple of days? Is it worth the (hour) drive, or best left for drier times?