Swinley Forest Forum Ride – 10th January 2009

Rudeboy – don’t think the Cotswold Massiv were too impressed when I rocked up for a ride. Only girlie amongst 8 fit blokes, I certainly wasn’t complaining! But reckon Bushwacked did when he very kindly helped me to carry my bike through The Field of Doom!!

Neville and Julian were the other two. Neville posts as R6MY and rode the white Pace 405, Julian was on the Yeti.

Well that certainly was the coldest ride i can remember being on. I didnt remember filling my water bottles with slush puppie but i certainly ended up with one!
Another great ride though, thanks again to C_G for planning it all and for the group leaders, forge and fu_manchu and for everyone else for the good company, good to see a few familiar faces and meet a load of new ones..

Didn’t Aleigh give you a lift home? And you’re still alive????!! Still in shock? Need therapy? Poor lad…

Of course he’s still alive, and he even survived two cups of tea that I made for him as well (that weren’t made with cold water and a tea bag in the microwave I hasten to add! :wink:)

Besides mate, there was a backup plan, I’ve got an ex GF in Guildford that I’d have called in to the rescue if everything fell through or she tried something funny!

I don’t try anything funny – not on the first bike ride anyway! 😉

I, as did all, had an excellent time! My Camelbak tube thing, well the water in it froze so I couldn’t have a drink at all so I had to buy a bottle of water in the cafe 😥

Right, whilst you lot are all tucked up in bed I’m off to Tenerife now for some sunshine for a week woohoo!

Nice to meet those that I did, you were great company 🙂

Just to add my thanks, I thought it was a cracking ride, and a pretty substantial turnout given the weather. Thanks to c_g and Aleigh for organising, Paul for leading our intermediate group, dezb for the photos and pants et al for the Mule bars when I felt done in near the end 🙂
Cheers for the Garmin tracklogs, too – I meant to take mine but forgot. Not sure I believe the claimed 827 Calories burned – maybe in 25C it would be!

BRRRrrrrrrrr. It was absolutly freeeeeezing in the forest. What an amazing turnout on such a cold day. The singletrack was running really fast, although there was that constant fear of hiting a patch of ice at speed and stacking into the trees.

Well done to CG for organising a great day out.

Big ‘Thank you’ to Paul for leading our little group around. Perfect pace for me , fast , with enough little rests to let the tail enders catch up. They were never more than a few seconds behind so no standing around waiting and getting cold. Just got to get my front mech to work as advertised. I think it had enough moisture in the cabling to freeze as it was working when i got the bike out of car.

[smug singlespeed git mode] Front mech?Nah, mate you don’t want to be bothering with mechs, and cables, and all that malarky! [/smug singlespeed git mode]

Personally, I think the ride, and Cinnamon Girl, deserve recognition in Singletrack. After all, it’s through the forum that we all met up, and how the ride was organised. And it promotes ST magazine. And CG went to a lot of trouble, organising the ride, and worrying about whether everyone was going to be ok.

But I’m sure Chipps, Mark et al will have noted this, and be planning to give CG the recognition she deserves! 😉

Jammy buggers. Sounds like you all had a right laugh.
If anyone ever fancies organising a Cannock Chase meet I’ll be glad to help loop some of the off-the-beaten-track stuff in. Plenty enough for a 3+hr ride with shorter options.
PT

nicko74

Cheers for the Garmin tracklogs, too – I meant to take mine but forgot. Not sure I believe the claimed 827 Calories burned – maybe in 25C it would be!

This due to the 418m (1300 ft) of climbing done, and in cold weather you burn extra calories just keeping warm. Also the 418m of climbing was done by a 81kG male on a 25kG machine using roughly 270 watts Ref http://www.analyticcycling.com. 🙂

Rudeboy – thanks for the nice words but it was a team effort. The guides and sweepers were brilliant and it couldn’t have happened with them.

One guide I already knew, had met 3 for the first time at the Swinley New Year’s Eve Ride and the other one I hadn’t met before! It just goes to show that there’s good public-spirited people in the mtb community.

PS Hope everyone has been enjoying the slightly warmer weather today!

Does anyone have a gps/gpx of the ride as i couldnt get and wanted to find out where certain sections/trails were?

CG; you are too modest. I think everyone would agree, you made a lot of effort, to organise this, and make sure everyone had a good time. A ‘team’ effort, maybe, but every team needs a good leader.

Mention also to Aleigh, for helping motivate people, and generally being lovely as well, and to the guys who kindly led the different groups around.

GPS, Check out my post on Page 11

Can’t see anymore photo links. Anyone else get some to add to my efforts?

I think sandwich was taking some but he has not uploaded them yet.

Pants – i have checked it out but it wont allow me to download the .gpx file.

A big thank you to C-G for organising the event and to DezB for the super photos. Glad you enjoyed my choice of route for the intermediate run and I look forward to the next STW event. It will be warmer!

The Paul D in the purple Buffalo.

Quite a few of you were asking if it could become a monthly event which is obviously very flattering!!

Would be interested to receive constructive comments/suggestions about the day, how the groups worked, should there be a maximum number in a group, choice of trails etc etc. Please don’t mention the weather though!!

As regards a monthly event, it would be dependent upon guides being available to help out. If there is anyone else with local knowledge who wants to volunteer, I could certainly co-ordinate. I’m a local so happy to lead but am a slow old girl so wouldn’t suit the majority 😀

Monthly???? You mean your not doing one this weekeknd as well?? 😉

Seriously, a monthly gathering would be a great idea if the locals are happy to be on guide duty of course.

I would certainly be interested in both riding and if wished, leading another ride. I would say that monthly would be a ok, or perhaps quarterly for the big organised rides. At the end of the day it would appear that quite a few STW riders are regulars including the two pauls and me when I can ride. There is a ride most Saturdays from about 8:30, im sure people could start to tag along to these and I don’t see any issue with trying to state times on the site like forge did for NYE.

Certainly group size (for mine) wasn’t an issue! If the rides were more frequent then I would imagine people would get a better idea of levels, in the past we have always tried to balance out the group speed as best as possible to accomodate all, the cold was probably the biggest factor in necessitating the need to split on saturday into abilities. From experience we have found 15 is about the max for a reasonable flow through the trails.

Ian

Hi Ian
I would definately be up for another ride around Swinley as long as you are leading again (top guide). I will get my gearing sorted out first though so I can chase you a bit harder next time. If I can learn my way round Swinley with a few more rides then I would be more than happy to help out in the future.

Matt

hmm, well Bikey if you bring the gears out so will I!!! Mind you my Heckler is a bit of a beast to lug around Swinley which is why the SS is so much fun. I recon if you drop back to the 16 tooth you will be quite fast enough….

Happy to lead a group if there was a regular ride, we are there most weekends as fu_manchu says though the pace can differ week to week based on fitness (mine mainly) and time chatting.

Personally I think every other month or a quarterly for a Big Swinley STW Ride would be pretty good balance of regularity.

It’s great to see so many enjoyed the day.

I’m also there most weekends doing early-ish rides and happy to meet up with a few people.

Am happy to lead the Sick, Lame and Lazy Group again! Not quite sure how I ended up with the most number of riders and I did manage to lose some of the group too! Ideally would prefer less as 15 was quite a lot.

Looks as though we’ve pretty much got both ends of the scale sorted – fu_manchu with race pace and me with snail pace 😀

Is it worth posting up a date for February or doing it last minute, dependent on weather?

Annoyed I missed it, was trying to get new bike built up the night before and hit issues with brake hoses being too short etc. generally have had a bit of a nightmare trying to get the bike working… next time though, and i’m a local so can help with the guiding…

giantjason
Does anyone have a gps/gpx of the ride as i couldnt get and wanted to find out where certain sections/trails were?

Check my Garmin link on page 11 as well. No extras just two laps of the Labarynth, part of the ‘Lost Tribe’ 🙂
Saracens Ho!

I’m struggling here with the gpx files on the garmin links – I can see maps, etc, but can’t download a gpx from any of them. Pants – I was looking at yours ’cause I was in the intermediate group, but there’s no way to download the route?

Forge you out this weekend?

I can see I am going to have to arrange to visit the mother-in-law again soon. Sounds like you lot had a blast at the weekend. I was out in Sherwood Pines where it never got aboove -2C on Saturday morning.

nicko74 I think you have to log on to your Garmin account then [upload] to your Garmin device, then download to your computer or Garmin Traing Center.

diam Sherwood Pine pah! neaver got about -5C in Swinley 🙂

-2 sounds warm. We set off at -7!!

to save me setting up a garmin account to download the gpx route could someone email it to me at jsrwalker AT googlemail DOT com please

I’d be up for early morning weekend rides. That gives me time to get a few hours riding in and be back before lunch, which means I’m not missed that much (we’ve got a 5 month daughter who likes a lie in)

Posting on the bike forum with the date and time would work for me.

On the gpx point, I’m helping CG to get a copy sorted for everyone.

smurf (on the mojo)

I’ve started a thread about sharing routes and gpx files. I have the SLL route in Tracklogs mapping software.

Any clever people able to help?

sounds like it was good CG, shame I can’t be there riding yet!!!
Jay hardly drank due to frozan bottles/ camelback and was very dehydrated by the time he got home!!!
Gayle

yep would be up for regular ride.

Forge are you heading out this weekend again? I have procured a full susser to
use and abuse ; )

Pics are up though not very good
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Nice pic’s

I will be riding this Saturday unless it’s raining hard (not keen on starting a ride in the rain) will be pedalling off at 8.30am from the car park and will be on some kind Dialled bike either a Prince Albert or Alpine.

I will have a look how to share,download etc.