Conditions at Swinley – how are they looking?

Probably heading over from the south island to Swinley on Sat to get a few sand-based miles in.

How are things looking there?

Wet and closed (well, all of the blue run is)

Blue’s closed, as is a lot of the red. And the rest’s underwater.

Ah. OK.

So not really worth the trip?

Trail Team Swinley FB states that the blue is closed, red is open and ok apart from a couple of sections. I’m sure there will be enough open to be worth a ride. I’m going tomorrow as I’m local so I’ll let you know.

edit – from FB 3 days ago

“Blue remains closed although work is ongoing to repair the damage. It is being significantly hampered by people riding it though. PLEASE STAY OFF THE BLUE!

Red remains open; hard work but mostly rideable. Red sections 1 (Tank Traps) and 8 pt 2 (Seagull middle section) are closed , Red 20 (Deerstalker) is closed, but the other trails there remain open, Red 22 (Mint Sauce) has a fallen tree blocking the start, Red 23 is slightly diverted at the start, and the fire roads are pretty boggy for good measure.”

Brilliant – thanks Andy. Any update would be appreciated. I’ll have a look at the FB page too.

I can confirm it was pretty boggy two weeks ago, I should imagine it’ll be worse now! Not sure I’d travel too far to ride it, it’s a 20 minute ride from my door and I’ve not been for a couple of weeks (I am lazy though).

If you’re heading over this way anyway perhaps consider Caesars Camp, Minley Manor, or Tunnel Hill. Conditions won’t be any better but there will have been considerably less traffic so it’s probably holding up better.

Worth knowing – thanks Tony.

Anyone know what the XC loop at Aston is like?

I was there on Sunday. Waste of time, it’s wrecked.
But I guess when you lay a flat trail and construct berms by digging them into big holes, that’s what’s gonna happen….

Anyone know what the XC loop at Aston is like?

I used to be on the committee there until I moved away. At a guess I’d say it’s rideable but challenging*. It’s built on a north -facing slope so tends to dry slowly; the flipside is that it does shed surface water well due to the severity of the slope.

*In a steep, rooty and chalky manner.

QECP’s Red & Blue trail are 100% open 😉
but expect muddy, slippy, rooty fun.

P.S I thought swinly was meant to be all-weather trail?

All weather like QECP????? 😆

andymc06 – Member

All weather like QECP????? Yep all weather year round slop 🙂

P.S I thought swinly was meant to be all-weather trail?

It used to be before they turned into a trail centre! A winter of weekly night riding there made for bullet proof legs and lungs!

Looks like Aston for my training session then.

adsh – I used to do a weather forecast while living nearby so can normally guesstimate what it’s like. However I’m not sure after all this rain how it’s faring – best bet is to check the FB page: https://www.facebook.com/AstonHillBikePark

It used to be before they turned into a trail centre!

Naaa, it was always* a quagmire. It’s just now there’s a FB group, trailbuilder and the Crown Estate manageing them to moan to/about. When W9Y was a 9yard wide bog for 6 months of the year it was just “that’s Swinley for you, it’ll dry out again in the summer”, now it’s someones fault.

*recently, pre the invention of MTB’s it was probably fine, and it’s deteriorated year on year since then.

^^^^^^ this is true.

That’s exactly what I meant TINAS – before it was a ‘trail centre’ it was year round riding, you just put up with the slop and gloop and felt better for it come spring.

Edit: Also through the winter there was FAR less traffic.

Sounds like Thetford. While it’s great to see marked trails there, the increase of traffic on those marked trails has turned some previously narrow sections into mushy motorways.

Edit: Also through the winter there was FAR less traffic.

And there were significantly more trails, so there were far less riders per metre, plus you’d avoid the really bad ones so they could recover.

There’s no doubt the weather has been exceptional, but sending a higher number of riders down a smaller number of trails…… even with the armouring that has taken place, that wasn’t going to end well.

My best guess is that Swinley is going to remain pretty poor until mid March at the earliest. That is the issue with trails that rely on holes (now ponds or puddles) for numerous trail features.

And there were significantly more trails

Yep, and

Swinley is going to remain pretty poor until mid March at the earliest.

Yep!

did we all miss the fact he’s popping over from NZ just to ride Swinley?

Captain Crazy!