Hi

To put my post into context

Last year I paid £60 for car parking annual pass at qecp due to the qe official trails and having head down within a short pedal. I believe none of the car parking goes towards any trail maintenance or creation and I’ve always thought this was a bit poor. Having now read the Head down trails and features have been destroyed and not being a huge fan of the official red I’m wondering what to do when my permit expires.

£60 would get me some day passes at rogate, some parking at Swinley. Any other options for approximately within 1 hr from southampton.

im loathe to further fund qe whilst they offer no investment in the official or support with the unofficial, absolutely gutted that a ‘trail of the year’ bringing so many people to the park has not resulted in backing and support for the builders.

Surely the money from the car park goes to HCC which will put part of the money back into the park.

Also what’s happened with Head down especially as southern enduro is a couple of months away.

Why don’t you just park in Buriton and ride up the hill to the head down side, or the into the park through the back car park? Wouldn’t park there mind you, the amount of cars that get broken into.

Plenty of other places to ride though. Go hunting at Midhurst. There’s a lot around Longmoor & always Hindhead too, of you can cope with the climbing.

Personally, I’d ride those three spots, and occasionally head out to the Surrey Hills, that’s the usual approach and I’m in Southampton.

I’d rather ride at Lordswood than bother with Swinley, don’t think I’d even ride there if I lived next door to it. It’s shyte. Rooster is good for a mess about, but you’ll be bored after a couple of hours IMO.

Surely the money from the car park goes to HCC which will put part of the money back into the park.

Yep, the car parking funds things like the new visitor center , cafe , ANPR parking etc

The trails are / were funded by the QECP trail collective recieving no cash help from HCC / FC / QE park management.

Head down has been put out of reach by Hants CC / QE Park management due to its uncreased use on ‘illegal outside of organised events ‘ trails , a few accidents , probably more than a few locals moaning etc

AFAIK the Southern enduro will still run as usual , just might need more prep to clear the tracks prior to race day , and might have to return them to ‘unrideable’ afters , but thats me speculating

So a quick search the head down trails have been put out of action by the council as they are not meant to be ridden outside of races and events will ahead as normal.

Annoying about head down but it sounds like to many accidents/ambulances have caused this.

A couple of you have touched on it, I would happily pay the parking if the money somehow contributed back to the trails. Seems the park, council etc were enjoying visitor increase but bit of an own goal will send me elsewhere.

i’ll go back to parking the Briton end and riding for free when I do visit.

i’m not going  to apologise for riding the head down trails outside of events, they’ve been ridden for years and probably are a victim of their success. I’m led to believe the decommissioning was very under hand with no local rider groups engagement. For the foreseeable I’ll be avoiding them to avoid antagonising and causing issues for the southern enduro gang

There’s some nice riding over Kingley Vale way, free parking there too. A few ‘dh’ trails (not ridden the black one since it’s been made ‘bigger’) that ages fun on a trail bike and some other fun singletrack runs.

I can’t believe the annual fee went from £35 in 2018, to £60 in 2019! Crazy price hike. Knew the Head Down would be made out of bounds due to idiots crashing, was only a matter of time. Said so ages ago on FB and the pricks get all aggressive like its their right to ride wherever they like. Always will be knobbers who ruin things for everyone else, such is life.

I’d rather ride at Lordswood than bother with Swinley,

Lordswood is a bog at the moment, rode swinley a couple of weeks ago and the bike didn’t even get dirty. Swinley has its place in winter….

Quick hijack but how is QE riding at the mo?

Not been up for ages but got a couple of hours to kill from Horndean tomorrow so thinking about a gentle play on the blue to wake my legs up after a few months off the bike or some local out in the hills xc.

And to the OP there is lots of natural riding around there. Depends if you want trail centre or natural stuff. Parking in Buriton and various spots around there.

Head Down was/is a victim of Strava heat maps and the enduros making them findable and in the wider riding public eye. They were always there (well, since the turn of the millennium, not sure before that) but with just enough traffic to keep them an actual trail and clean enough to ride by those who knew they were there.

It would be interesting to know from the collective if they still receive and funds or assistance from the park for the blue and red upkeep.

Hardly. To my knowledge they have never had funding. It’s all volunteer built and Southern Enduro funded. Southern Enduro, of course, have to pay to use Head Down as a venue….

Still receive? Ha ha, nope all funded through enduro events and people putting in their own time, tools, fuel for diggers etc
1000 of man hours to better the red and build the blue
Thousands od ££££££ in parking from the new tracks
Promises of using hdown as black extension to the red to make it properly long

It’s the liability issue though. Once land owner / manager knows about jumps then there becomes blame and claim and they do not want a million pound lawsuit plus mega nimbyism from 1 particular lady with horses

Sorry no idea where the still came from. Middle of the night typing maybe. Was meant to be ‘now’.

Quick hijack but how is QE riding at the mo?

Like it always is in the winter: Muddy in patches, ok in others. Few of the berms on the blue are massive puddles, but most of the newly built stuff has held up ok. I did a night ride last week and not til I got to the car park did I realise how filthy I was!

Very gutted about the head down rumours, literally the first place i tried any “natural” trail riding since i started last summer.
Was always under the impression it was a deliberately overlooked location.
I would have hoped that HCC would have reached out to the guys who look after the QE official trails in a hope to find some sort of arrangement.
In all honesty.. bar a couple of optional features, i would consider QECP blue more dangerous due to the speeds the average rider will carry… i’ve always been relatively slow on the head down stuff.
Not sure how much QECP i can repeat as my usual haunt so will also need something decent near fareham to mess around on

For those that don’t know me I’m Scott, I run Southern Enduro and a founding member of the QECP Trail Collective.

I will gve you as many fact as I can about the situation:
They had an incident in the Spring and Instead of engaging the QECP Trail Collective and working on a viable solution they went behind our backs.

This will not affect any of the southern enduro races at the park. We will continue to hire the land and we appreciate the support for the mountain biking community.

To this date HCC or the FC have given £0 to the building and maintenance of the Blue and red trail. All the money was public donations and money rased from the races. I start the collective 10 years ago with Spencer Huckstepp, with the help of lots of volunteers over the years we have accomplished more that we ever thought was possible, But this is a big step backwards (mainly in communication).

Bit of background on the official line on access and ownership:
Headdown like the main Park is owned by the Forestry Commission and run/managed by HCC.

The park management has an agreement with Buriton Parish Council to restricted the use of Headdown to 8 events per year. 2 of which can be MTB relating.
The QECP Trail Collective help negotiate this, there was a stage HCC with pressure from local residents were going to close Headdown to the public bar the Footpath of course.

Recreational access to the Headdown fireroad network is to be maintained year round (Forestry Commission Rule). 90% of the trails in Headdown were built and maintained for the enduro races.

Long on short of it is let this all blown over and carry on but a little more discretely/less features.

Thanks Scott
obviously very confident that the majority of the trails will remain. i mean a lot of it is natural so…..fingers crossed.. its an amazing site

that’s a shame for everyone.

You could try Bishopstoke bike park. When it’s open which is never. And please don’t do any skids.

I’m gutted to hear about Head Down, even having only been there once. Thank you Scott and others for trying your best to look out for us.

Thanks for all your efforts Scott and the collective, both at the main park and head down. The main park is the best it’s ever been, head down was a superb place to ride. Out of the way and with features to challenge. <span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>I’m sure it will naturally persevere, </span>

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>I personally will not be paying to use QE until there is an investment into the reason I’m visiting (blue and red trails). Otherwise they in my view will continue to take the benefits  without re-investing.</span>

I will also be making them aware of this, when my renewal is due. Not that I’m sure they’ll really be bothered about 1 individual, however as a community possibly they would if the parking revenue suddenly dropped (with reference to QE investment).

Al

Maybe not the answer you were looking for, but what about grabbing a shovel, rake and mattock with the money you’d spend on the car park and building something new somewhere?

Remember, once upon a time QECP and head down trails didn’t exist. They came about because people put the effort in and built them

Kiksy

i do locally, however I can’t match the all weather capability of the blue at qe.

also my work patterns and commitments mean time riding is precious at the moment.

in addition so is my expenditure ie I’ll spend it where I think it’s helping (I’ve previously donated and raced several enduros with the qecp collective and when things settle at home I’m sure I’ll do it again)

Gotta love a practical suggestion 😂

Do what I do-park at the Red Lion in Chalton, ride over to the park (a mile or so) and then spend your ‘parking’ money on a pint when you’re done. Win-win!

Do what I do-park at the Red Lion in Chalton, ride over to the park (a mile or so) and then spend your ‘parking’ money on a pint when you’re done. Win-win!

Good suggestion, the hampshire hog works well for that too.

Depends what you want to ride I guess and how far. There used to be (not checked recently as I know it on auto pilot) a nice 10 mile mixed 90% off road loop out the back of QE and into the downs and back (check the HCC website cycle bit) and you can always carve a section of the SDW and do a ride till tired / bored / out of time and ride back – plenty of free parking options.

My fave on the latter is Cheesefoot head car park just outside Winchester on A272 and then ride to QE for a coffee and back 30 odd miles and nice rolling, reasonable surface all year, not seen that many idiots (bonus), mostly don’t see anyone …

Have to say like other QECP collective does a cracking job and I asked HCC directly years ago if I could do anything hands on the help and got nothing :/

James

My regular ‘quick spin’ out of the park is to head out East on the SDW, follow that to top of Harting hill, then head diagonally right to corner of field by car park instead of following SDW. Go into woods and follow trail down parallel to road, when it passes a field on LHS and hits road cross, then follow bridleway along a field (running next to the horse jumps that are part of Compton XC course). Right at road junction, down hill, Right at farm, then Right at main road past school entrance. Next left, then Right at junction with old gas light type street light. Past farm, along bridleway then when it spits out at road (by junction with Ditcham Park school entrance go straight on over railway then next Right (Kiln Lane) and follow until you get to Halls Hill car park and go Left back into park. Finish with Blue descent. Depending on how much of the park trails you do that’s 14-20 miles, with only a few miles of road, most of which is very quiet.

There’s some other nice stuff if you head a bit further along SDW towards Hooksway and then through the woods, into Kingley Vale and then head back via North Marden. Easy 20-30 mile loop of xc type riding with some nice flowy singletrack and some steep gullies as well as the wide double track stuff.

Some info about the collective and dig day etc… this was filmed before the headdown stuff happened:

To answer the original question you could try Staughton, just north of Chichester. Not as good though, but OK.

Stoughton/Kingley Vale is mega boggy at the moment unfortunately.

To answer the original question you could try Staughton, just north of Chichester. Not as good though, but OK.

https://www.pinkbike.com/video/238772/ good memories from riding at Stoughton. I hardly ever ride their anymore, it was every week at one point.

No way just found a testing vid of when we first bit the final berms on the red trail. (Second half). https://www.pinkbike.com/video/243964/

Is the roundhouse cafe by Butser Hill car park and the portaloos (which are conveniently big enough to take your bike inside with you if riding solo and you forgot your lock) ever open these days?

I’ve cycled up to the trig point on my road bike maybe ~10 times since summer 2017, typically Mon-Fri 1300-1700 and I’ve never seen it open. Once or twice I could have murdered an ice cream and/or an ice cold drink.

Hob Nob

Go hunting at Midhurst.

A few people have suggested Midhurst trails to me but I haven’t worked out where they might be yet. Any pointers, please?

Thanks!

@scottfitz how much of the stuff in the video is now still relevant since the Head down incident?

Are you guys still proceeding with work to the Red, and the new pump track etc? Or are you understandably throwing the towel in?

All I can say is ‘thank you’ to @scottfitz – we had a great day zipping around your trails last summer while on holiday. We only went to QECP because our friends were so enthusiastic about the riding.

(Oh, and CX ftw on some of your swoopier trails….)

just found a testing vid of when we first bit the final berms on the red trail.

Seriously, 7/8 years ago! Man, doesn’t seem like it. I actually moved some wheelbarrow loads when they were being built and certainly got some appreciation for how bloomin hard work it is. My back couldn’t take it!

Are you guys still proceeding with work to the Red, and the new pump track etc? Or are you understandably throwing the towel in?

The collective isn’t going anywhere and all planned projects won’t be affected but long term I can see myself spending hours/days/weeks progressing the future of QECP. I still can belive what we have achived and I will still be about but not super active.

All I can say is ‘thank you’ to @scottfitz

Now worries dude.

@scottfitz how much of the stuff in the video is now still relevant since the Head down incident?

Which Vid? IMO what happend at headdown didn’t affect the race as we were planing to use different/new/old classics anyway to mix it up a bit.

Any more info on the midhurst/stedham trail riding as I’ve been riding qecp for around about 3 years everyish sunday as well as a bit of stoughton and rogate and as much as I still enjoy it, it’s always refreshing to hit something different.

Cheers