I’m wanting to go somewhere from Bristol for some big hill riding tomorrow. The mendips are usually good for this but I imagine would be a complete slopfest right now which I’m not sure I’m quite in the mood for. Happy enough to drive down to the Quantocks but I don’t know if that will have suffered the same fate as well.

Trail centres in Wales are also an option but not so keen on the bridge fees (Six pounds seventy?!)

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Everywhere is a little soft ATM, but quantockswill be fine. Also, exmoor can handle a bit of wet pretty well. We regularly ride around Dunkery/porlock and it handles the rain well. The rockier stuff on dunkery/webbers post will be the best bet, can get a bit squishy on some of the wooded trails in Horner for instance. Still fun though. Enjoy.

The Mendips last night were simply awful. It was the first one so far this year that we looked at each other and deliberately took fireroads and tarmac and headed to the pub. It sucked. Anything decent uphill was a walk. Anything on the level was a walking pace wheel spinning misery. Anything downhill was surf and glide survival with any pretensions of control by luck rather than judgement.

Even in the deepest depths of winter, the Quantocks never gets really bad like that.

Quantocks is usually a safe bet if you stick the the dead women’s ditch, frog Combe, smiths Combe sort of end. Great wood and triscombe don’t always fair so well

Onedpete – thanks for the advice. Just because of lack of daylight, Minehead’s probably just too far but getting up to dead woman’s ditch should just about be ok. I normally do Great Wood stuff if I’m there though, so will get on trailforks and strava route creator and see what I can conjure up! Thanks all for the advice, hope it’ll all be good 🙂

Hey gotbike sorry to piss on your bonfire but I was riding the Qs today , Forestry have been clear felling in Great Wood and it’s an almighty mess 🙁
Managed 20 miles but I would avoid GW if I were you , sloppy in places but good fun though .

I hit The Mendips from Warminster on my Wazoo equipped with 2.35″ G-One Speeds back in mid November, at the start of my Center Parcs hol in Longleat, ~75 mile journey (but had to stop recording on way back after a diversion to work a new route “home” and then forgot to record the last ~18 miles).

It was a bit chilly, with freezing temps first thing long before I reached the hills. No dramas with traction.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1273656671

Very sedate pace due to bike, the gradients and man flu, gutted I ran out of time to climb Draycott Steep (1.2 miles, 725 feet climb 😯 ).