Keep Thetford natural

Know where you are coming from, but the truth is that there is absolutely nothing at Thetford which is “natural”. The forest itself is a planted and harvested commercial crop and has only existed in recent history. The original landscape being sandy heathland, pretty much all of the “wild” trails, (i.e. the unsigned ones) are the product of motorcycle enduros that have been held in the forest until quite recently. Not at all natural.

Regarding Sudbourne and a jump site. The situation is exactly the same as Thetford. Sudbourne is an adopted FC Bike Park, run and managed by a club. There are parking facilities there and it is right next to the Sudbourne Road where it is is easily accessible to all and also where it is clearly signed. It became so as a result of the FC trying to engage with and manage pirate jump builders who were building dangerous and ill thought out jumps that were causing serious hazards to others. The situation at Thetford is identical and much more pressing as the argument for a properly managed jump site is much greater simply because of the high visitor numbers as you have mentioned. Illicit jumps built into and around way marked trails have already claimed the mobility of more than one innocent visitor, and it needs dealing with before someone gets killed. (Usually its because of a crappy jump on a trail, with the material coming from borrow pits either side or in front of it, the non jumpist arrives at speed, sees the jump tries to ride round or over it, front wheels into the pit and a face ground interface ensues)

The view until TIMBER interceded has been “find a jump knock it down”, and “find a jump builder and prosecute”. Both Timbers view and the FC’s is now that it would be waaay more constructive to engage with these guys and provide what they want in a positive fashion. Trouble is if they don’t come forward nothing will happen.

I’ve already held discussions with several jump builders and the FC. The FC I have to say have shown much more committment than the jump boys. We actually got as far as discussing suitable locations, but there is no point in simply building it for myself, so without jumpists nothing will happen.

So, as per my other post – keep Thetford for the xc’ers and the families? Nice and inclusive

Well you’re never going to attract the DH crowd are you. It’s all XC at the end of the day..

The majority of kids you see on jump bikes at Thetford normally don’t have a helmet, have ridden from Thetford town or Brandon and normally don’t have much of a clue when it comes to dirtjumping. I had to be ambulanced from Sudbourne with head and neck injuries a few years ago because my enthusiasm outweighed my talent – obviously I’m not going to sue anyone but I’m probably in the minority.

A serious jump spot to attract the proper dirt jumping folk will be too risky for the FC, I personally think large sets of trails should be kept on the QT and not made freely available for little jonny to spanner himself on.

Sudbourne, yesterday..

Berm Bandit – can you drop me a mail at wilkitcher@gmail.com, I’d be interested in helping

Cheers

Done.

I had to be ambulanced from Sudbourne with head and neck injuries a few years ago

…and that is why it needs to be done properly. The discussions we had re location were regarding being sufficiently out of the way, but easily accessible to emergency vehicles and so on for precisely the reasons you state. Incidentally, when Sudbourne was about to be bulldozed I was one of the guys who went after the FC to engage rather than knock it down, and thats how TROG the XC lot at Tunstall came to be formed, as an offshoot of that process.

Well you’re never going to attract the DH crowd are you. It’s all XC at the end of the day..

I’m not saying you are, but Thetford has the possibility of having some more interesting riding than miles of flat, xc singletrack…

And no, I’m not suggesting replicating Sudbourne at Thetford.

And no, I’m not suggesting replicating Sudbourne at Thetford.

I am! Preferably even better though.

There are quite a few downwardly inclined sections spread around the forest that are fun to ride, I’d suggest that no area can ever be all things to all people but Thetford obviously has a lot to offer. The numbers speak for themselves, week in week out there are hundreds of riders out there, a large proportion of those are localish and/or ‘keen’ Mtb’ers, if 50% of those became ‘involved’ the potential to improve the offering increases exponentially.

Read this thread a couple of weeks ago and have since been to Centre Parcs and spent some time riding thetford.

Before I went my sympathies naturally went with the trail builders but after going I can see were the OP is coming from.

There are several challenges for trail builders here of which I think the greatest, is not the lack of elevation, but the multitudinous ridge and furrow systems. It appears the forest has very recently been planted straight on agricultural land and the remains of ploughing in very severe, much more so than at swinley of any part of the surrey heath.

Generally flatish forest singletrack must be ridden at speed to be enjoyable but this proved very difficult at thetford due to the constant bumpyness of the terrain. In fact I’d say it was probably one of the most tiring trail centres I’ve done because you could nt really just sit down and spin.

I think there are at least another 2 issues.

1. The signs (probably down to the attitude of the local forestry commission ?). Seem quite a bit over the top especially for the bombholes some of which really just gentle dips in the ground.
Also calling a section “The Beast” this is actually somewhat laughable.

2. Being in a “nice” area with a low population density probably leads to a lack of funding.

Going to thetford did make me somewhat grateful for the £20 a year/£2 a go fee to use swinely forest though. This has allowed swinely/gorrick/BOB/others to build and maintain a good selection of trail which can stand up to a large number of riders.

In particularly I think the people at thetford could look at the latest addition to stickler (at Swinley) to see how to make a good trail in a totally flat area of forest.

But I can see the challenges are greater a thetford. In particularly I think the “links” are almost the hardest bit at thetford. What people want is a fairly flat piece of easily ridable singletrack to link up the good sections.

But at thetford unless you put this on “boring” fireroad, the ridge and furrow system means the “link” is actually more tiring than the “real” sections. Or alternatively large amounts of work needs to be put into trail to flatten it, which could be spent on the “real” sections.

Still thetford has some massive advantages

1. Its a huge bit of forest for the south/midlands of England.
2. Low population density suggests there is unlikely to be future conflict between user groups. Felt very quiet while I was there even Saturday morning.

I’m sure some very good trails will develop in time, but at the moment I think its somewhat behind similar trails at cannock/swinely. Personally think this is down to an overly cautious attitude from the FC and probably a lack of funding/manpower (low population density) rather than the lack of elevation. Which is what I think the OP was trying to suggest.

There is loads of really good single track in the forest, most of it is unmarked, but you can find maps of it all online. The signed trails are a poor advert for the real trails, although keep the masses off them.

I did find some other bits of trail, and I did notice that some of them actually appear to be in better condition that the main trail.

I think alot of it is marked on openstreet map, but I didnt have enough time to make a full reccy.

The real problems is that the waymarked trails are just wild trails that have been adopted and then ridden to death with zero maintainance. All of the way marked trails bar the Red are knackered beyond recognition and need substantial investment in them. The red is the exception, becuase it was originally “created” out of wild trails and then destroyed in under a year. TIMBER formed as a reaction to that, and it has been their objective since then to get the red into a long term sustainable condition as a first priority. It is just about there now. They have currently moved on to the Green to try to get that in shape before everyone who visits the Forest diverts onto the Red which is the only thing that isn’t a quagmire or sand trap depending on the weather.

Everyone keeps going on about the wild trails, but they are diminshing in number and quality year by year. Its in the nature of the beast in a commercial forest that there will be harvesting and thinning, and when that happens unadopted trails will get trashed. This year there has been substantial harvesting at BCP. That pales into insignificance when you see the thinning map for the next 18 months or so. There is hardly a block at High Lodge that remains untouched by it.

The timber boys are on it and trying to achieve positive outcomes, but the reallity is that they are few and the issues are many, so any support would be welcome. they have a meeting on Thursday this week, so if you can roll up and give your support.

scu98rkr- I love swinley but it has no marked trails, some of the unmarked singletrack at thetford is as good as swinley singletrack.

The main advantage of thetford is that someone new can turn up and ride 2 plus marked trails. Which swinley doesn’t offer.

The main disadvantage is it doesn’t have the fun bits like “The Gully”, “Deerstalker” etc…

100% agree Timbers guys should take a road trip to swinley, Lots there that would work well at thetford (meet up with a local for the best bit thought)