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My first ride there today for around 10 years at a guess, and what a change. Loved the red route even if it took ages to get around due to the complete lack of fitness 🙂 So well done to all concerned with the trails.
The £13 parking though, ouch!!
Will look into joining the cycle club perhaps.
Parking at Bedgebury seems to go up by £1 every year. It's always been expensive.
Yeah, £13 on weekends, school hols and bank hols, £10 otherwise. It's technically my local trail centre, has some decent sections and they've made the most of the pretty flat area it's in. Bit pedally, at least it's not got the swinley yellow brick road...
Was thinking of going there next week but may have to give it a miss until the kids are back at school.
Mind you, aren't there "alternative" parking options available?
Cough - layby on the A21 just before Flimwell - cough
Does any percentage of the parking fees go towards the trail upkeep or is it only when you join the bike club?
It's all well finding freebie parking elsewhere but the trails need money spent on them to keep them in good nick..!
Yeah they do - from the Bedgebury boars site:
Membership and vehicle admission fees paid to Bedgebury Forest CC go exclusively into trail development and maintenance. By becoming a member and paying the annual unlimited vehicle admission charge to the club you are contributing to a better trail centre.
Moved away now but great place for a quick blast especially in the evening, quite a lot of off piste trails as well if you look around.
Yeah they do – from the Bedgebury boars site:
Membership and vehicle admission fees paid to Bedgebury Forest CC go exclusively into trail development and maintenance. By becoming a member and paying the annual unlimited vehicle admission charge to the club you are contributing to a better trail centre.
Yeah like I said, is it only when a member of the club that the money goes to trail building or does a percentage go towards it if you pay on the day?
I'm not sure how often I can get up there to make it viable to join.
Ah I see, looks like if you pay on the day it goes to the site as a whole, only when buying membership through the cycle club does it all go to them.
My info is a bit out of date as I moved away 4 years ago but I was very heavily involved in the club.
The agreement then was that if you joined the club and bought a parking pass from them, that money was ring fenced for trail development.
If you bought the pass from the Friends of Bedgebury, the money could be spent on any part of the site at Bedgebury.
If you just paid at the gate, the money went to FC head quarters. The FC then issued Bedgebury with a budget each year for running the site including trail development.
Am glad you are liking it though, I spent many hours building with trails and arguing with the FC for more and better trails. It's come a long way from the early days when it was a 600mm wide flat lane of compacted type 1 which sunk into the mud each winter. The first argument we had with the FC was "can we at least build some berms", to which we were told "No, berms are too difficult to ride for most cyclists and are intimidating". Happy days!
To be fair you guys have done a great job with the (very!) limited elevation there. The trail grading is pretty way off though, but the fact that the FC thought berms were intimidating explains why it's graded like it is!!
They need to take a look at the new Blue section at QECP to see how a trail should be graded, it's a fantastic bit of bermy goodness that's on the same level as the Bedgebury red.