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@DezB where the hell did those big logs come from? I loved jumping off those drops! :0(
No idea! My kid said it was health & safety gone mad. We still had a play on the drops, but gawd knows why it's been ruined with those damn logs.
and I’ve been to Swinley by myself (plus Trancend Epic when Jnr had school)…my “just turned 10yr old” refuses point blank,
BUT its not just about jumps it’s decent tech as well.Everything seems just a bit safe and sanitised??? I don’t ride something and then think, I’m going to try that again better … (I suppose a stopwatch might be one way)
I think Weeksy covered it, its a red route on the outskirts of a large town, its all rollable so that non mountainbikers dont hospitalise themselves, there's not supposed to be any challenge in getting round st s gentle pace, I can do it on my cross bike!
The tech is hidden in plain sight. I used to ride there a lot, and still ride fairly often and never got close to clearing even half the gaps.
Ref the logs in the pics above. I’ve been told it could be due to forestry works in the immediate area? However, only takes someone to remove the red tape above and you can come down that gap at serious speed with no time to stop before the logs.
Looks good fun!
However, only takes someone to remove the red tape
I did not approve of my lad doing this 😳
He’s not usually the rebellious type, but I think he was looking forward to chucking the new bike down some stuff 🙂
There was a clearly visible sign there too’Go no further’ or something. Didn’t see any sign of logging around there, though there was definitely some in other areas (some trails closed).
It must be because it accesses at 90 degrees onto a used fire road, with the option to go straight across for a bit too.
That area is out of bounds which would be why logs are there. Officially its green, blue, red and fire roads only (or fire rides if you've seen the signs 😏).
There's been increased effort to block off some old classic trails. New England especially with claims of special protection of wildlife there... then they go log it 🤷♂️.
As for the training / skills area, keep an eye on Swinley Bike Hub posts of FB. Full details will be announced but it's not open to the public (CE rules) but can be accessed via membership, skills courses and they're will also be open sessions. It has to have instructors on site and must be closed out of hours. It's not pay to ride as CE don't want a bike park. Aim is for progressive features. Jumps and drops from kerb height upwards to crazy it seems.
Roughly. Things will be made clear soon apparently.
Took son2 around this afternoon. He hasn’t ridden for a long time, but did well on Son1’s skills compensator (Trance). I made it around on the cross bike. And including red, but a puncture on red25 due to a jump meant a slow ride back. I was of course a lot faster uphill - as you’d expect on 7.5 kilos of titanium niceness.
The training area looks awesome in a “No way am I going to ever ride some of that!” kind of way.
I did the Swinduro a few weeks ago and in my wisdom decided I didn't need to do any practice in the morning as I had ridden Swinley loads before. I ended up with my first OTB of the year and another tumble of less drama, it turns out there is more to Swinley than I was aware 🙂
One of the stages that I didn't fall off on was a short section within that new skills area, it was awesome fun but over in a flash. Decent elevation for the short run it was and some really good huge berms.
Back to the original point of the post a few months ago. My 12yr old was released into the wild while I was doing the event and went and pootled about on some of the blue and red, he was buzzing afterwards, he loved it. We also go to Rogate and QE and after Rogate he is always quiet as he normally falls off and scares himself, the likes of Swinley and QE pick him up again and give him confidence. After writing this I am going to have to take him again this weekend 🙂
If my lad wasn't injured i'd be joining you ! I'll stick a post up in a couple of weeks as we'll be back in.
That would be cool weeksy, he could do with someone of a similar age to add a small amount of peer pressure just to get him over some of the stuff he thinks he cant do.
Perfect mate. Keep an eye on the forum in the coming weeks. We'll be over there a bit with him and a few mates, all 11 years old and decent little MTBers. Just waiting for him to recover from a broken hand which has ruled us out of the Enduro in FoD this weekend. (Not cycling accident LOL)
If you want to get The Fear properly, follow them unsighted down Wind Hill .. wooshing downhills on the ragged edge of my 47 year old skills then suddenly they all start popping into the air in front of you!
My first time this weekend there and suddenly I see why they all want full suss bikes, and why schlepping round the edge of a muddy field isn't what they call mountain biking 😀
BTW was it anyone here's lads doing the boardwalk 18ft drop yesterday?? Mental. Amazing skills, then following it with 2 doubles of ludicrous height.
Do you guys think that my Trek DS 8.4 would cope with Swinley? I only have the stock 38mm tyres on it. I’m not overly confident off road and generally stick to green lanes or gravel.
I would have thought that a Trek DS8.4 would be OK. Have a go on the green route to start with to see how you get on. If you don't like it then there's loads of fire roads to ride around so it won't be a wasted trip.
Still ace fun over there 🙂
That looks very dry, needed a submarine for Red 2 yesterday........
After that jump there's another which had a massive puddle, but that was it matey 🙂
Dry other than that
I enjoyed Swinley when I was just down the road. First few rides were a slog on my Capra, but then tweaked the suspension and it was a little more fun. And as many have said, pretty damn good for free!
In comparison to QECP, I prefer Swinley. Especially with the new skills area they've opened.
In comparison to QECP, I prefer Swinley. Especially with the new skills area they’ve opened
Skills area is excellent for what it is... Sure there's a charge and a process, but the actual skills and progression are excellent indeed.
Had a day off so went to Swinley with Junior. Arrived at 10, quite quiet and good organisation / manners all around.
Very dry though and a bit skittish, but of course fun.
Nice timely bounce of this.
My lad has been to the Summit area the last few weekends and has now been given permission to do the big drops.
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He's the youngest to have been given permission and there's not actually many who've completed it. Sadly he wasn't allowed to try it last weekend as i wasn't present and my mate didn't want the pressure of him binning it and me not being there... But i fully expect in 2 weeks time he'll have a pop at it... !!!!
You have to 'qualify' to ride it by doing 10+ of the other specific jumps and clearing them all. If you get 1 wrong, you get reset back to 0 and need to go through it again. Obviously they're the next level down, not the baby kids jumps, so qualifying isn't easy.
The drop pictured looks seriously huge - amazed they’ve been allowed to pop that in at Swinley - albeitnkn a controlled / coached area. Fair play this there’s literally no chance I’ll ever be dropping in off anything like that.
I was going to congratulate you on your awesome picture of your son, then I re-read the post.
Fair play if he's going to end up doing those Weeksy, they are genuinely as big as they look in that pic.
Out of interest what does he need to tick off first? I rode the open day and there was a big difference in size between those drops and the 'progression' drops (ie the 2 x lines of 3, which were more like step down jumps).
Really frustrating that the Summit won't do pay and play, I think I'd benefit from the bigger progression stuff (i'm OK on small / medium, have a big mind block over the bigger stuff and decent sized gaps which progression would help with), but can't justify an annual sub as just won't get the use as prefer to ride over SH way so don't get to Swinley too often these days.
I don't actually know, i know you need to do 10 sets of the jump line Gaps and then they open the 'black' with a road/trail gap, you need 10 of them and i think they've built more drops which again you need 10 perfects of.
He's done lots of both lines of the drops that were there when you were, i've not done the last on the left... apparently i have to do it next time there LOL.... FFS and faceplant. !
considering he's only just turned 12 and crashes way more on the trails than me, his jumping absolutely astounds me, it's not just the jumping but they way he manipulates the bike in the air to get the right landing etc... i just sit and think "how the hell do you do that!"