[Closed] Swinley tomorrow - anyone want to show me around?

Off visiting relatives otherwise I'd be tempted. Need to ride fat bike in effort to train for gorrick.

Since the old days, the new official trails are sign posted, just follow the numbers. Some you have to look out for a bit.

10am on a Sunday parking... will be fun 😉

Blue badge helps parking and forces electric bike.

Every silver lining has a cloud

Will be there later in the day, 5.30ish.

As above, follow the blue and it takes you to the red. Can't go wrong.

Do your bike a favour, avoid Red 2, it'll be a bog. Turn right after the first bit of red rather than crossing the fire trail. You will pick up red 3 further along the fire trail.

Hi,

Am planning on being there tomorrow, though probably a bit earlier. Am pretty noobish, so probably not much use as a guide - but will definitely keep an eye out for you.

Will be on an orange Whyte 905, not sure about clothes, but wearing a Blue/Black POC helmet, and will have an orange OMM backpack.

Hope to see you around,

Rich

p.s. Thanks for the heads-up jamesoz.

Will be on an orange Whyte 905, not sure about clothes, but wearing a Blue/Black POC helmet

What colour bike orange or white?

I'd advise you to wear clothes, firstly the sand up your crack and secondly a man riding round sporting just a blue/black helmet, please don't go near the park area...kids present
🙂

Ha... Will keep an eye out

FYI quite a bit of tree felling going on so after blue 7 (the downhill bit after the long ish fire road section) there is a diversion in place so take a left instead of right (up the hill). Signs to follow and this will bring you back up past tank traps and back into stickler.

I will be on a green solaris...with white helmet (not due to a medical condition)

Ha! Well, it is meant to be warm tomorrow... Good point about the sand though...

Wca... Think I rode past you... Scott e bike? Green decals? Was in my way back unfortunatly after hammering a quick blue / Crowthorne / red loop so did not have much legs left to join you guys. Hope you had a great ride anyway 🙂

Sounds like you saw me.

I was initially very disappointed with the blue trails near the lookout. They were basically trail of pebbles in clay with such a crown to the trail you had to either stay right on the top centre of the pebbles or ride alongside the trail. Where there were berms they were the the wrong shape, size and position.

I rode back to the Lookout and then headed out along the fireroad that goes under Go Ape and headed off until I saw a few other riders and started following various groupd down what I assume are the red trails. Much better. Still strange surfacing in places but much better flow.

I reckon with a local rider to guide me it would be great. As it was I spent too much time wandering aimlessly or following people down trails dragging my brakes to slow down enough.

More planning needed next time I think

The pebbles can be a bit much in places, don't always seem to follow the natural flow.
You can easily cherry pick the best of the blue & red with "off piste" bits inbetween. Does need someone local to show the way.

It's gotta be time for a stw organised ride maybe ?

1st half of the blue is shit, 2nd half & red ok. I only ever go on my way to Wales as it breaks up the journey, and midweek so it's quieter. Must be a nightmare at the weekends with so many families, etc.

Apparently the off-piste is good, have a couple of GPXs but not gotten around to checking it out yet.

Its only busy early in the day. I'm going in an hour or so and will probably only see half a dozen others there.

Yep so much more to swinley than the yellow brick road. Yesterday did 22 miles hardly touching the official sections. Happy to show you around the decent stuff wca... Pm me next time yiu head over.

The trail surface is weird... All off camber (for drainage) so takes a bit of getting used to.

It's fine at weekends to be honest so long as you are not a strava saussage and happy to hold back when behind slower riders and just chill. It's great to see kids of all ages out and about enjoying the trails. Blue is always fairly busy at weekends as it feeds the red but once you split, it never feels that crowded.

Whilst the car park is jammed at weekends, the trails are not.

obviously, there aren't any trails just the other side of the Old Dean estate (where that massive ariel mast is) around Deepcut, but if there were - although there aren't - then i expect they'd be loads better than Swinley.

But there aren't any, so i don't know why I mentioned it, and as a result I can't offer to show you around them if you ever wanted me to next time you're in this area.

😉

theotherjonv - would you mind if I didn't send you an email to arrange not being shown around as well? 😆

absolutely. I happily won't show you around some trails that don't even exist.

Schroedinger's trail centre?

yep, you can either ride the trails, or know where they are, but not both.

Interesting that people really dislike the blues, I see the first few, leading to the red sections as being the bit you do to "earn your turns" and the blues leading back to the lookout are quite fun and flowing in parts...

TBH I don't mind following the official loop until you get to the trail heads at red 20 and then session some of those for a bit, beasting myself back up either climb with the descents as a reward, till I'm flagging, and then follow the arrows back...

There's better stuff, I remember riding yonks ago with old riding mates who knew the trails, but then I didn't go back for a few years and now when I visit I just want a quick ride, I don't have the time to explore really...

Happy to be guided round some time, should there be an STW forum ride...

Next Sunday? I've got all day there. I'm far from an expert on the offpiste compared to some.

I quite like the very first bit of the blue, the crown on the trail just gives each corner a nice berm if you drop down the inside.

Anytime next Saturday or Sunday eve is cool with me.
Just got back from there....

I probably only have Saturday afternoon free next weekend.

I'd happily tag along with anyone who has the 'Swinley knowledge' who can put up with a trundling biffer.

Alternatively anyone fancying another follow the arrows session I'm happy to do that too.

I've been pretty much every weekend this year (yellow Ibis Mojo or On-One Fatty Trail)

Tend to stick to blue and red as I'm usually with one or both of my boys

If there's any form of STW ride going on I'd be interested - would like to see some of the off-piste stuff

I need to go back and tackle the jump at the start of corkscrew. It's been about 6 months since I have been there

Some peer pressure and advice might solve it!!

I'd be up for a group ride. Could do with a bit of sills advice too! Wobbly moment off one of the new drops on a red.

Rich

The social ride on Thursdays at 7 is great for finding new bits. Usually splits into fast and slower groups.

Saturday would be good, I know some nice loops but certainly no expert.

When I lived in the area, there definitely weren't any good trails at Tunnel Hill, so don't get anyone to show you those either

I need to go back and tackle the jump at the start of corkscrew. It's been about 6 months since I have been there

Some peer pressure and advice might solve it!!

No jump there ! If you're jumping, you're better than me 😉

There's a roll-in drop though 🙂 Which funnily enough i did on Saturday. My teaching/advice would likely be "Hell, i don't know, i'm just happy to have survived it myself"

Interesting that people really dislike the blues, I see the first few, leading to the red sections as being the bit you do to "earn your turns" and the blues leading back to the lookout are quite fun and flowing in parts...

I'm all for earning my turns. Not bothered in doing it by riding dross though.

There's enough off piste for a half decent ride there still on a hardtail. But 5 years on, it could do with a fairly extensive makeover on the main loop.

Weeksy we have discussed it before. Can you roll that?? I always assumed you need to take off the lip

I can't see how you can launch it mate, it's almost vertical and then into flat. You launch that and you're hitting a 4' drop to flat.... That can't be a good thing ? I don't know what my actual speed was, maybe 4-5mph over it, so not quite a standstill, but certainly not taking off !
TheotherJonV did it before me last time i hooked up with him over there, it was mostly because he rolled it on a HT that i just followed him LOL. It does indeed look quite daunting when you walk up to it.

The flat landing is the bit that has spooked me, exactly

I need to roll it then. Puzzled why others have no problems and I wimp on it every time!!

Do you jump the bigger ones nearby??

Do you jump the bigger ones nearby??

You mean the log type drop in which is just behind you from there ? Loops into a little jump at the bottom ?

I don't actually ride that one at all... It has no appeal to me and just screams of potential disaster. I have ridden it in the past, both before and after the put the log at the top/entry point, but i went there on Sat and looked and said "Nah, don't fancy it"

Corkscrew drop entrance would be just a large drop with no transition, landing to flat, so not that nice to send it off there.

I roll it every time.

I feel like some sort of riding god (I'm not)

If you rolled it at miniscule speed, it is possible to catch a chainring (you can see the scrapes on the root) but even then it depends whether you have a high BB, if your FS is compressed, how big a chainring, etc.

Anything vaguely momentum / bit of a push off the lip and the chainring clears easily, front wheel drops onto the downslope and you ride away while your riding buddies admire your orsumz.

Never tried rolling it, purely from looking at the chain ring marks. I also treat it as a drop off - push off over the lip. How far down the slope I land or where it starts to flatten out just depends on the speed I take. Always have a quick look first just to remind myself of the transition angle, not being a big sender myself. With a nice entrance and exit its easier than some other Swinley drop offs.

As for the cobbles I don't mind them too much. Not as slippery as Cannock and they just encourage you to pick your line a bit better. If anything its the jarring on stiffer hardtails which takes some getting used to.

What Jon says. Just enough momentum to clear the lip

The chain scrapes had made me nervous of rolling to - hence to date I have always taken the chicken line to the right - my excuse is I have only ever ridden their alone and not much passing traffic is i mess it and myself up!!!

As others said, it's a much easier roll than drop, and probably quicker.

I've seen people drop into the transition and drop it to flat and the margin for failure into the transition is pretty tight, you don't want the front wheel to be too high or it's got a long way to fall and pick up speed, and you don't want to get any air with the back wheel if you can help it or you'll miss the transition. Basically as you would roll it but with a bit more speed so the front wheel gets a split second off the ground.

I find the section on the blue (not sure what the name is) that snakes it's way through a flat section of woodland, back and forth, back and forth, to be very dull.

I've only been to swinley about 3 times and each time I found it boring. Probably because I'm mincing and you need to do it at pace to enjoy it. That being said, it's good spot if you're local to it and the rest of it is good considering what the area is surrounded by (i.e. it's not exactly big hills round there)