[Closed] A Quantock Hello - Some indepth Qs about the area

In my misty eyed reminiscence they were more 'artwork' with vague 'directions of travel' .. 😀

love em 😉

Canopy is the new Knottie, only with maps & descriptions for the masses rather than the nice pics of bikes & posts - I claim my tuppence

ohh shit.. if you saw my fb + strava ride pics... 😡
'every week a peak' n all that!

got a bit bored of bikes n posts now though.. my last strava ride picture was of my kittens?

btw if i hadn't been posting pics like that on fb I wouldn't have two old friends riding with me regularly now at all. it helps get people start riding which is great.

... think I may have said this before [ahem] but it is possible to go riding without strava and to ride for a whole day at the same time as other people and amazingly not see anyone.

fact is though. strava's stats for segments, and their global heatmap clearly show that people favour the routes i listed. even if 30% of riders used strava, the proportions still matter. (fact is 90+% of people I know use it..)

What I liked about all the trails on the Qs from riding them over many years was that people explored and found them and well you know, just rode them. Only now there's the internet and pics and maps and strava an' all -

i still found a bunch of stuff all on my own with an OS map, or just going another way to avoid people on horses etc. those accidents led to me googling and asking for more, and the likes of sharkis old posts on here helped find a group of people who've been there and done it, and are still doing it!

i'm a ex-skateboarder (only stopped 3 years or so ago properly) and i used to know every skatepark and small town skatespot within an hours drive of taunton. every weekend ,and some evenings we would pick a string of random towns/villages and target every school, industrial estate and likely town centre buildings looking for "somewhere good". the M.O is still the same I guess!

get out explore, have fun. 😉

Great write up here chaps. Must make a trip there soon.

Unexpectedly back at the tox tomorrow after 2 cry off tomorrow's trip elsewhere (one ill, one out tonight chasing skirt).. The remainder will be exploring Triscombe and showing my mate down Narnia & s&j's etc.. If anyone's about - I ride a dark blue Santa Cruz Full Susser - say hi!

Btw I was hunting for other knottie spider maps , looks like he hasn't posted for a while but I'm sure I saw him and his son in the spring

Rides road mostly these days.

Canopy as you know all the names what's the (newish) trail next to the chimney called? Steep loose switchbacks.

I'm only just starting learning my way round great wood & triscombe but I think that ones called witches cauldron

Learned that from this video which does Narnia and s&j's to mid chimney before going over into it instead of left at the sign?

That it?

I still ride the Qs .....

hi knottie 🙂

just having a pre-ride coffee before heading off to grab a mate and head on up!

what are you riding these days? i'm sure we've said hi at least once, if not a few times!

Show us a spider map then 😉

I did a bicknoller post photo when i was up a few weeks ago
[IMG] [/IMG]

Didn't recognise most of the top of that video until it popped into the gully.

That new section off the chimney looks better than the xmas tree line that used to be accessed off that corner.

Didn't recognise most of the top of that video until it popped into the gully.

i think i read it got felled/replanted a while back? certainly looks very different from the bit in quantocks sessions video, the gully was the thing that made me recognise it in that too. the sign by the gully in the newest video says something like "trail changed ahead for safety".. there's a similar sign at that point where it crosses the chimney saying the trail exit there has changed, they turned the chimney exit right at the bottom so the trail doesn't come straight out and scare people but and runs along side the road now instead, spitting people out parallel

for funs 🙂 almost up to date pic, bike has dark blue pedals now though (and little mud guards)
[img] [/img]

Yep that's the one actually starts from the double track just along from the start of chimney.
Proper gnarly trail at speed
The gully now has the choice of the old or the newer trail to the right.

You could join the [url= http://www.mbswindon.co.uk/mbs-quantocks-ride-oct-2016/ ]MB Swindon[/url] lot on thir Quantocks ride at the end of the month. They may be able to show you some new stuff or, at the very least, introduce you to some like minded folk.

ta. not sure i'll keep up! did 20 miles & 3000m (900m) elevation today, which is rare (Defo getting fitter!).. Did actually steal some locations off one of their routes for today. i'll do that after 😀 😀

did bits some around great wood/triscombe today including.

- finding (not doing!) the' triscombe gap thats in all the videos.. its a [u]lot [/u]bigger than it looks on video!
- narnia + sharki+jambos + lower chimney
- dunc's secret passage, puddles, sams trail / full chimney
those rocks in the upper chimney must be nasty as hell when wet!
- came UP what i assume is rocky horror 😉

took my mate over to somerton and did bincombe on the way back, somones cleared the downed tree i was going to try move. woop!

Yep that's the one actually starts from the double track just along from the start of chimney.
Proper gnarly trail at speed
The gully now has the choice of the old or the newer trail to the right.

might be the one that now has a sign on saying its been closed off by the FC? only saw two trails off that side.. one was too far back to have been it as it was where sams trail spits you out

*3000ft 😉

not found anything that suits our style of riding much on the south side of cockercombe road in triscombe so far, which is to be expected as its mostly DH stuff. don't really know where to look. but i think we're more into 'natural' trails / singletrack than man made jumps and berm fests 🙂

i'm still exploring 🙂 had a weekend where everyone bailed due to the weather or previous weeks OTBs etc..

it was soggy due to the previous days rain but I finally did the DWD to holford combe route, old devils galloping for the first time in 2 years, I went 'up' the frog singletrack, and did "enduro stage 1" which is south west of DWD accessd via a small gate and crosses a fireroad (i'd always gone down through a track 1/2 east with a stile and dropping to the fireroad,and doing another descent to ramscombe) and explored behind dowsborough a little. even got to try out my folding saw for fallen tree that was blocking a track and couldnt be tucked any other way

whats left on my 'todo' list right now..

- heading from the fireroad at ramscombe over to st davids well (narnia area) there are at least two trails down (i think) if you go rights at the top of the first climb and there is the "mini chimney" on the way back from the same point in the other direction. so thats 3 for me to find.
- learn more of triscombe
- the farm descent near wills neck
- theres another trail that runs off of higher hare knap and drops onto 'horizon' further up from the frog singletrack ( https://www.strava.com/segments/6951301 )
- farm descent near wills neck
- some bits around cothelstone my mates found, which i've done very little of on foot

and when i'm really bored..

- behind combe house hotel theres a track.. i know the 'straight over' lower hare knap, and the track left, just never been right
- exploring what happens you go go 'left' after smiths, mainly just looking around that LHS side of smiths as you look down from beacon hill (i already did the deer park section and perry combe..

that'll keep me busy over winter

found an old post by sharki mentioning a descent called "half hitch" aka knotties trail..

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/of-chipps-and-the-quantocks-stw-forum-ride/page/2

any idea where that is?

no idea where half hitch is and I think I probably went on that ride.

saw this earlier. some frog combe, stert combe and bin combe on there.

always been jealous of their house at the bottom of cockercombe.

nice video . i'd love to live anywhere within a 15 min ride inside the main core of the tox. growing up had a schoolmate that lived on the edge of adscombe and used to stay there sometimes.

here what should be an easier one.. a post by sharki just reminded me.. which bit did people used to call "the esses"? my mate says his cousin took him down it 15-20 years ago and he has no idea.. probably around triscombe/great wood?

ridden a few new bits from the wishlist

- bone yard. a man made technical trail parallel to narnia with lots of small jumps.. too much for me, but its nice to be in narnia and see someone higher up on the hillside coming across it

- two trails that run from up above quantock combe down onto the fireroad that leads to st davids well / rocky climb up towards narnia/bone yard. the one that comes out nearest the climb is the better one

- trail that is known as "mini chimney" that runs south to north down up above the higher ramscombe fireroad - definitely my favourite of the new batch by far

still can't find what the "esses" is, or know what knotties trails is/was..

this weekend [i]might [/i]be my first solo one for a while, if it is i'm going to explore around smiths as there seem to be various interesting looking bits on the satellite imagery

What are the trails like at the moment canopy? Aiming to be moved in within the next fortnight and got a week before I start my job so hoping to sneak out at some point...

hey 🙂

didn't make it out this weekend, for the first time in months. week before last the stuff around great wood/triscombe was starting to get slippery, but nothing too bad.

in general the quantocks dries out really well, there a few places that get boggier, especially the lower parts of combes.

you got any idea where you'll be heading out from and is there anthging you really want to ride? can try help with a rough route for you to follow 🙂

btw although strava is good for pre-ride/post-ride looking at stuff, when you're actually out ther the Trailforks app (by pinkbike) is the best to find trails by

wow, trailforks looks pretty powerful!

Thanks for the route offer - it's the Cothelstone area I'm interested in exploring at the mo. I'll be riding in and out from there to get onto to the main trails, so be nice to find a good descent from there towards Bishops Lydeard before I hit the tarmac home.

I live in Lydeard and I've been riding the Quantocks for more than 20 years, give me a shout if you want a guide for the basic layout of the place.

Thanks Dibb. Have ridden loops out of Nether Stowey when on holiday, taking in Slaughterhouse, Smiths, Weacombe, Stert & Somerton and finishing with Bin Combe, but will be coming in from Halse so at the opposite end (same end to you presumably?).

wow, trailforks looks pretty powerful!

but its great because its open source, anyone can add/alter/adjust trails. (like strava, but democratic!)

I put some nice pics on the frog combe singletrack page the other week.

Thanks for the route offer - it's the Cothelstone area I'm interested in exploring at the mo. I'll be riding in and out from there to get onto to the main trails, so be nice to find a good descent from there towards Bishops Lydeard before I hit the tarmac home.

when he doesnt drive his bike up to lydeard hill car park my friend has been riding up from taunton to cothelstone and found "ball lane" however it descends back on the buncombe hill (wrong side).

most people i know that come up from taunton seem to start riding from lydeard hill car park and head north. (its a short ride to the man made stuff in triscombe, and the triscombe car park is a ball ache to drive to). if you get can up to there easily enough its a good starting place. (its not true, but in my mind the quantocks start at lydeard hill)

just has a peek at his strava, and the guy i said about before who lives in oake seems to return via terhill lane, and go up via west bagborough.

obviously dibbs will know the nicest route up!

first time out, I suggest aiming straight for the lydeard hill car park/wills neck area by going up this way https://www.strava.com/segments/4017599?filter=overall (the guy in the #1 spot is the one from oake) just follow the "ridge" trail as far as you can handle north and turn around and come back down it.

that's going to be the backbone of almost any ride you do, a good idea to familiarise yourself as after mid morning you can head towards the sun and end up back on it.

easy deviations

- it passes through triscombe car park, there you could drop down to the narnia/chimney section/fireroads into great wood and head back up the fireroads to either crowcombe park gate (CPG) (on the ridge trail) or dead womans ditch (DWD) which is a bit over to the east

- drop into any one of the northern combes (ones north of DWD/CPG) and come up up ladies edge/sheppards combe)

- ride the ridge north to bicknoller post, above weacombe - do the descent and loop back up round through staple plain car park)

you posted at same time as me 🙂 missed the window to edit, but obviously, once you're north of the road by CPG/DWD you're hitting territory you've done before. so looping down from triscombe stone area through narnia / chimney etc would give you bit of the good stuff before coming back to CPG and the main ridge trail (macmillan way)

Apart from the jumpy stuff at Paradise the Cothelstone Hill tracks tend to get cut up by horses if it's the slightest bit wet. There's usually a few weeks in the spring when the ground dries out due to the lack of leaves on the trees.

yeah i walked the buncombe side a bit in the summer.. very boggy even then, and does not look well used at all. strava stats+heatmap show that hardly anyone rides there.

btw on the trailforks front.

- you can still use strava, and link to trailforks, it'll auto import
- you can import a strava ride to crop to make into a trailforks trail (or a gpx etc)
- its mapping system has a heatmap feature which is awesome for seeing whats popular.
- the mobile app pre-downloads regional maps so you dont need a mobile connection when out in the wild

btw trailforks is not like strava, has a very different role, and its 'competitive' leaderboard timings etc are quite broken. its just about sharing trails. the goal is for trail groups to have real usage stats for their work with local authorities.

also as far as the quantocks go, on trailforks i leave or talk to the 'TRC' (triscombe riders collective) about changes to their trails, everything else is me. i've tidied up what was there already, just working on improving and maintaining.

Super, thanks chaps. Off sick with a bug today so think I'll light the fire and do some more OS map geeking.

I like the idea of finishing a ride with a few runs of the jumpy stuff at Triscombe. Slightly embarrassed to admit it but if I can't find some nice stuff through Cothelstone I might end up driving to Crowcombe and riding from there. will probably take me 30 mins to ride and with the family etc that's over an hour extra on the trails before I have to head back!

I aim for around 25 minutes to ride to Lydeard Hill and 8 minutes to get back.
If I ever drive up there I firstly feel guilty for driving and secondly it takes me several miles before I'm properly warmed up.

Is the DH track still there at paradise?

ha,of course it's a climb. It'll be all down hill coming home. The life spent in Essex thus far has defaulted me to presuming everywhere is flat and therefore all directions take the same time. Oh I've a lot to learn. 🙂

And if you finish with triscombe DH tracks you've got a big old hill in the way between you and bishops Lydeard.

Triscombe Combe can be a fun way down to that side, Not technical at all but bloody fast.

Is the DH track still there at paradise?

There been a lot of hard work put into it this year.

sounds like a good plan 🙂

the CPG car parks are quite lumpy and not nice to cars. the DWD car park is much better and just as close by. its popular for people starting rides and gives better access to great wood (i'd take "joes path" now that the enduro stage 1 one has been blocked off half way)

lydeard hill might be a good point too? personally not a fan of parking there at weekends and it gets crazy busy but during the week it won't be too bad.

because i mostly come over from BoS I favour the hodders combe or staple plain car parks. even when i come up from taunton (picking up mates) i tend to drive up the minehead road, over CPG, past DWD and down to hodders combe. starting low means you get a nice descent to finish the day with (i can come up with approx 10 descents leading back to hodders car park, it really is the best place IMO).. and if anything goes wrong you can coast back to the car more easily..

edit: since that 'flat' comment.. yes plan your ascents! park low. climb and descend til you drop

you've already ridden three of my faves (slaughterhouse, bincombe & smiths).

one in the CPG/DWD area I like is the descent from the cairn on higher hare knap straight into a further descent into the rocky track on the left hand side which brings you out at the junction with somerton combe.

if you do go from CPG/DWD area over to triscombe, on the way back hit the 'mini chimney' or 'rocky shoot' as its called on trailforks for some reason. its great fun, only done it once, and hope it is the same on a revisit.

post here where you've ridden, and what you like so we can help steer you towards similar better stuff. i'm generally an early sunday morning warrior. 🙂

Is the DH track still there at paradise?

yeah.. i've seen the local DH riders talking about riding it only last weekend, i thought there was a video but can't find it.

found the paradise video, filmed this weekend just gone

noticed jono found my strava 🙂

evening bump..

btw.. seems like lots of locals, especially enduro types are bit west of the tox riding "doris" and friends. going to check that lot out really soon.

i've seen a few rides on strava, sounds like theres lots over there. was given a really good primer earlier today in a LBS by a employee who's a friend of a friend of a friend! (possibly a future enduro event going to happen there soon too)

did the explore near smiths thing - not much but a fast track to skirt smiths. still need to look between there are vinny combe sometime, which i'll do vinny combe -> smiths rather than the other way.

heads up.. local riders group is doing a dig day, and Narnia is getting a refurb on saturday and sharki+jambo's is getting a tart-up in the near future 🙂

have had it confirmed that a nasty root at the end of narnia that threw me and a mate off a few weeks ago, and i just found out also badly hurt someone else i know is getting decomissioned during the exit 'extension' (softening) work they're doing

(the general plan seems that they're working all trail exits on to fireroads to stop them being so direct so they don't throw people straight out in them at full speed)

Is that the big shiny root near where the new ending exits onto the fireroad? What are they doing with it, changing it again?

pretty sure it is yeah.. i dont know about other prior changes.. but i'm assuming thats similar the work that happened a while back the bottom of The Chimney and what was done about a month ago at "Scriptures Union".

from what i could glean they're making the exit slower, by extending the trail a bit. i'm guessing they'll either go left (where there isn't much?) or to the right (towards The Bone Yard) and then swing back to run people parallel to the trail, but still close enough to the start of Sharki + Jambos to drop straight in

its about not scaring the shite of people on horseback by appearing like a bat out of hell out of a gap at trail side.

and i think its a case if fix it or lose it... at least there is a good relationship with the forestry getting this done rather than shut down (although i know of two rogue wild trails that have been closed in the last 6 weeks too which aren't helping the cause apparently)

oh and forgot to mention.. another small section, where that big jump on all the videos is up by the car park is closed now. upside is they'll be doing major trail making / building on the side thats been closed the longest at some point.

Had a great ride yesterday guiding a club from the mendips area. (6 others)

quick summary

hodders combe, up to ladies combe. The streams must have seen a huge amount of water down them because they've eroded a serious amount. the normally calm shallow crossing at the wide crossroads clearing where horizon/frog combe/old devils/holford edge meet has carved itself deep.. and further down the steam is running a new split course over a section that used to be always dry.

through the wall single track to bin combe / bin combe / up the road / higher great bear crossing / up to Dead Womans Ditch / off down to the left and over a gate, then down and left again into "Joes Path" / up the fire road and cut across to st the st davids well area via "attacked by gorse",
after going down that up to narnia rode the new bit, which spits you out about 20 foot to the left of the old route.. / back up round to the bone yard, then up through "the meadow" / puddles to route 66 (sometimes called upper great wood dh?) , hoping to follow on into scriptures union, which had an closure which hadn't been announced, then up to the start of the chimney, did the chimney, one lost his rear mech on thhe sharp rocky right.. lost 2 as they had to make their way back.. rest of us went back up the fireroads back to roughly where we'd branched ealier.. into the "mini chimney where I came off at speed and tumbled down into the pines.. thankfully didn't hit a tree and only have minor scrapes.. back up the fireroad to crowcombe park gate, up to near black hill trig, over to frog combe, then down the northern / singletrack side (the good one!) back down to hodders combe, and done!

(doh.. new narnia exit spits you to the RIGHT of the old one.. so sharki+jambos is now to the LEFT about 20 ft. its 2 new berms and a optional drop (of about 3 feet?) which i can't see how to hit without dieing during/after :D)

went off on my first go at exploring the trails at dunster wood (hopcott/east exmoor) above minehead this weekend just gone so didn't ride the quantocks.. but jonostevens did his first since moving down here

we've both got permission from our other halves for a ride. I've suggested riding sunday morning from holford at 10. not confirmed. don't know how much time he'll have yet but am assuming a couple hours.

if anyone else fancies a ride you're welcome. theres no plan, just filling in gaps and a general orientation thing based around avoiding whats already known for jono. I'm not a ninja up hills, so don't worry about holding us up!

going to assume frog combe singletrack (north side) and higher hare knap cairn -> rocky horror on the way back are strong possibilities. as well as pointing out everything we go past

still exploring, but there's not much left. been mucky, and theres a lot of deadfall so trying to focus on fitness/climbing and avoid going too deep getting stuck in soggy places with no way out 🙂

i've done all of thee great wood side of triscombe. i think theres more in the seven wells wood area, i found one awesome man made trail i'm waiting for better weather to ride again.

couple weeks ago was with a colleague (who's been riding the tox for 20 years and knows the name of nothing..) did a descent from wills neck trig point to the blue ball inn.. i went stupid fast..and somehow got away without dieing

did short combe, willoughby cleeve and stert/somerton last week. route to somerton is a peat-y mess, and the rest is quite damp.

weacombe today was very soggy at the bottom, spoke to some lads up there, and did "sideslope bob" on the way back, its the more direct slaughterhouse route. i think i went down it a few years ago with a mate (pre mapmyride/strava) and turned back.. theres a nice little that can be done at a decent speed.. kind of like first the one in stert, but as big as the second, and with a softer landing. following that theres a ramp/drop over a log.. and after that a log to hoik the front wheel over. then it joins slaughterhouse after the 'normal' descent through the woods i'm used to taking over the moorland. i noticed another trail coming off the top from the right as well.. so thats another to seek out the top of..

so there's the other rocky horror dibbs ([url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/rider-down- ]RIP[/url]) mentioned that i was going to find today, but figured conditions werent good for rocks.

theres something i think is the trail that comes out in holford where concrete block/DWD does. if not i';m going to have to go up it and find out. (its not old devils)