Please note that from Thursday until Sunday The Stickler and Tank Traps will be closed for trail maintenance. Please DO NOT ride them whilst work is being carried out.

i don’t know if any others are affected, these are just the ones I saw notices on.

the seagull as well…. think it might be closed from earlier than thurs IIRC… possibly tuesday if my memory isn’t too out of shape.

Seagull is Tuesday to Sunday

Ah OK, thanks. Little bit confusing as at one end of The Stickler, the notice stated Thursday and when I reached t’other end, it stated Tuesday so I shouldn’t have ridden there.

Nothing at Deer Stalker/Baby Maker/Labyrinth.

Thanks for the info riding there Saturday morning, BUT although I ride there regularly I’ve not a clue what trails are which and what they’re called apart from the labyrinth of course?

Thanks for the heads up CG!

The Stickler has the wooden bridge and Tank Traps ends in a gully.

So if you ride Stickler from the Devil’s Highway end, bear left then right onto Tank Traps, which leads to Lake Ride.

Are you with me? 😉

The Stickler has the wooden bridge and Tank Traps ends in a gully.

Yep a gulley with Massive tank traps! at the end.

Now we digress but why is there a bunker up behind the labyrinth & tank traps at Tanks traps and the end (or start) of Seagull.

I assume it was for training purposes or was Bracknell forest to be a last bastion of hope, a stronghold?

Is it just me that has no idea what any of the trails are called in there? You could tell me that there is a diversion off “Harry Potter’s Erotic Otter” onto “Steam Biscuits” and I’d be none the wiser.

Did anyone else bump into the warden on Saturday? Chap in a Gorrick shirt riding round in a land rover checking on permits.

We had a chat with him & he said there’s a new guy in charge from April so we can expect a bit more of that sort of thing, but the new guy is also pro-biking so maybe the trail pixies will get a bit more help. Maybe they’ll even relax the BoB-only rules and let us mere mortals get stuck in to help.

just missed the warden, he was hanging out by the gate on the devils highway but disappeared by the time we got there.

where’s steam biscuits, is that the one on the right before the stickler if you’re coming from the crowthorne end of the devils highway?.. the one without the bridge 😆

i’ve never met anyone who knows the name of that bit so from now on its steam-biscuits

That’s Pete by the sounds of it.

The BoB only rules for trail maintenance is an insurance issue. the club is insured, not the people helping individually.

There are fortified positions all over the south east if you know where to look.

As a permit holder (I hope the rest of you are too) it’s great to see some trail maintainance going on.

I’ve been told that a 10 year plan is being put together but also that the new Head Warden of the Crown Estate isn’t very pro-cycling.

Anyone know if the details of this 10 year plan will be available to read?

Is it just me that has no idea what any of the trails are called in there? You could tell me that there is a diversion off “Harry Potter’s Erotic Otter” onto “Steam Biscuits” and I’d be none the wiser.

same here

It’s a locals thing, the trails get named and if you ride there long enough you learn them. Some people have different names for them though so it can get confusing!

Hi planning on taking some newbie’s to swinley this weekend are there any trail closures planned ?

obviously seagull run, stickler, tank traps whole nine yards are good for newbies so would be a shame if they were shut and I might rearrange.

Does anyone have a map detailing where these trails start and finish? I’ve been to Swinley a few times and really enjoyed the trails I found but I tend to just find something a ride it, whish is fine, but I would like to know where all these other trails are so I can paln a route around. Perhaps someone could edit the sinley forest map and show where these trails start and finish? or perhaps its already been doen and if thats the case would someone be nice enough to show me where I can find it?

Cheers

Have they drained stickler/tank traps, those flooded berms are ace! If you don’t hit them flat out your going for an early bath.

I was actualy starting to quite enjoy the ruttedness of seagull, and the corners had worn down to something fun that could be drifted (and would probably naturaly berm as a result) rather than the uber-grippy hardcore.

Stickler shut until March, all others open….

Stickler is still officially closed, as the surface isn’t up to it after the recent rain, although that hasn’t stopped a single person from riding it.

Seagull has notices asking people if they really, really need to ride it, and if not, could they kindly go around?

topgunsteve – there are trails in all four corners of the Forest so it’s just best to explore! Keep your eyes peeled for singletrack and follow it.

The map that you can purchase from the Visitor Centre really doesn’t show much for mtb’ers.

Alternatively wait for philconsequence to organise another Sexy Party. 🙂

my sexy party alarm has just gone off!

Middle of march i’m thinking. but i’m not organising anything without a couple of people volunteering to lead a couple of groups as i felt bad for DrBike(Andy) being sucked into leading us all last time!

i’ll get my thinking cap on and plan a supersexy thread over the next couple of days.

(went over to the corkscrew and surrounding bits yesterday… can’t believe i’ve never explored there on a bike before, much fun to be had!)

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

Open Street map is probably the best map of swinley.

Is there a notice board / forum detailing which trails are closed ?

Might be a good idea to inform people if they travel along way to find the trails coming they might just ride them anyway.

If there was notice they might not bother coming and wait a few weeks till open again.

scu98rkr –

Awesome mate, thanks, that’s really useful. Can you print these maps out?

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

what do you mean ?

Can I print them for you ? Postage might be a tad expensive ? Might be better to get some one you know with a printer to print them for you.

PS I know what you mean really 🙂 Try using the print screen button to take a screen shot. Paste into paint maybe and print from there?

Ha ha… seriously could you though!

Just kidding, will work out the best way, thought you might know a specific option as i couldn’t see a link. Thinking that this might be pretty good for Leith hill etc

As someone that was that helping do the trail maintenance and spent the day lugging that special orange Swinley sand (and who is suffering for it today) it was really disheartening to ride their yesterday morning to watch large groups of riders clearly ignoring and riding around the closed Stickler trail. It is clearly marked with tape across it and a sign yet rider after rider just picked up their bike and stepped over the tape.

If ignorance I’d bliss there was a lot of happy people about

Why can people not realise that these things are done to try to protect the trails and reverse the damage done by all the people who ride around the edges of the mud on a trail making them wider and deeply rutted?

Ohhhh, not seen that map before, nice one

although that hasn’t stopped a single person from riding it.

This anoys me more than people dragging their brakes round berms in dearstalker.

Righty, now that the best bits of Swinley (IMO) are closed, where are the locals playing?

Hey scud is there a list of closures any where ?

Scud, i went there yesterday with 2 people and we didnt ride the sticker.. saw the red tape and just moved on to to try and discover some new (to us) stuff 🙂

i hope our restraint shows that not all riders are idiots, and i’d just like to say thank you! your hard work and effort is commented on nearly every time we ride in swinley.

Pretty please with myself now… you can export the maps from http://www.openstreetmap.org/ as PDF, just zoom in as far as you want to, select “Export” at the top and choose “Mapnik Image” select PDF and export. It comes out with a very well details PDF map that you can take out with you… I must say, I am very pleased with this resource… muchos gracias scu98rkr!!!!

The only ongoing closure is Stickler til mid march, the rest are open, stickler is closed purely because it was so waterlogged.

Their will be further maintenance days in march and may to do those trails that still need work

scud – that is shocking! Was there no way that er, obstacles and/or shouty people, could be put at the entrance/exit?

Well done for your hard work too.

cheers for the info

Out of interest which bits of Stickler had work done?

The first bit through the bog needed something and the little bit before the bridge, but I didn’t think the rest was that bad?

Just a little update … Tank Traps and Seagull Run have notices asking people not to ride them if it is raining or is wet.

For anyone that isn’t local, we have had an awful lot of rain in the area and Swinley is particularly muddy now.

If people could avoid riding those trails as per the notices then it will mean the hard work put in by the maintenance volunteers won’t have been in vain.

Oh, and of course, we are eager for thse trails to be full of sexyness for phil’s Sexy Party next month. 8)

Just a quick note to say that conditions at Swinley are still very wet so please please please stay off the recently maintained trails until things dry out.

There are plenty of other trails to keep you occupied until the drier weather (!) arrives

Thanks

Surely they can block the ends of the three trails, probably about one percent of people who ride at Swinley will ever read this thread.