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I am working in Exeter on Monday night and will be heading over to Oxford for Tuesday night.
I have never ridden the Quantocks and fancy a spin around them.
Can anyone enlighten me as to conditions and routes.
Ideally if someone just so happens to be riding there Tuesday mid morning and wouldn't mind me tagging along that would be great.
I am happy to do some miles and get in as much as possible.
Thanks
Lucky you - the Quantocks are lovely!
Are you looking to explore the area, or to ride the hardest descents?
I live about 10mins away from crowcombe. Conditions are fine. It always drains well. There will be a few muddy spots and the stream crossings will be, er, wet but it is pretty dry really.
I'm at work Tuesday alas!
Rob, sounds good, I live in Kent so clay based clag is my usual fair.... may I suggest a sick day ;-D
Esme, both really, i'm happy to do lots of climbing to get a good explore/highlights ride in.
Shame it's not tomorrow !
Second the Quantocks as a brilliant place to ride - love it!
Rode Saturday. A bit of slime here and there, but generally ok ish. I've certainly known it better. Climbing Bicknoller the sun came out and was proper hot as it always is.
I would love to have helped but I'm otherwise engaged.
Yeah, I used to live near the chilterns and winter was a clay chalk clag fest. The quantocks is gritty but rideable even in torrential rain. Get a copy of the mbr killer loop and enjoy! Really easy to navigate.
I'd love to take sicky but I never do!
Esme, thanks and you have put me onto the Killer Loop.
Rob, I hope your empolyer appreciates you!
Oldfart... I might be able to make it tomorrow, what is the latest you can do?
As it is so far from home i'd like to do a proper ride, taking in plenty of the area. I've looked at a few routes now and I think the trick is making sure I go down the downs and up the ups etc.
Excited now, love riding new places!
Me and my mate will be starting about 1030 , probably stop at The Plough for refreshments 🙂 at some point so prob be too early for you ?
Where are you leaving from?
Ok... so thank you but I now have an appointment in Kent first thing so Tuesday it is for the Quantocks.
Thanks
all.
Killer Loop emailed - enjoy!
Ok so a quick 'bump' just in case anyone is on the Quantocks tomorrow, that being Tuesday.
If not I shall have a go at the route Esme has so kindly sent over.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1129583932
This is my route from Sunday
Ride it you will not be disappointed
I browsed through MBR at lunchtime and the route they have this month wouldn't be a bad starting point in the absence of a guide.
SOAP, that route is just plain weird, you seem to have missed most of the good bit or ridden them in the wrong direction. 😆
Ha.... my main concern is riding up good downs and vise a versa... I have many hours at my disposal so will just go up and down as many times as my legs will carry me!
Thanks to all for the help and advice.
Haven't seen the mbr route but most magazine Quantocks routes are usually a bit rubbish and miss all the good bits.
I'll be up there later on this afternoon.
Pretty sure I went down the chimney, down frog singletrack and down bin Combe. 🙂
Descent from crowcombe into great wood is nice then fork left climbe a bit to descend right to the bottom of great wood, up over the hill toward Quantock farm past the farm to pick up sharki/jambos and so on.
I like it....
I learnt a few things today...
I realised too late that I have no idea where things go on the phone when you download them, after half an hour of searching while on the hill I found the PDFs that Esme so kindly sent me, only to then learn that I don't appear to have any way of viewing PDFs.
This left me on the hills blind but for a faint notion of my start direction.
I then learnt that the term 'a faint trail' means different things to different people... two jaunts off down what turned out to be no more than sheep tracks later and I got into the ride proper, all be it a fair bit of skin and blood down from hiking through the gorse with my bike on my back!
Did Smith Combe, Weacombe, Frog Combe into Holford Combe, Stert Combe into Somerton into Short Combe into Hodders Combe.
I had expected to climb back up and look for a drop back to the van..... I was completely stunned to roll out of the end of Hodders and see it sitting there, so that was me done... at no point did I really know where I was which at first felt a little off putting but in the end I enjoyed the sense of finding my way.
Thanks all for your help.... cracking area.
You obviously did okay, as you can identify where you actually rode.
And it's all lovely!