Which are your favourite descents off these hills and why? We rode a Coombe to the west of Cheddar quarry at thew/e, but it was very rocky…

The descent to the east of Black Down is fun but short.

What else? Is there much on the north side of the hills? Eg down to Harptree?

Lots of good trails around but you really need locals to show you ..

Sounds like the first descent is Warrens Hill road. In terms of Mendip, its one of the longer descents – the hills are only about 330m afterall, so you wont find really long descents anywhere.

Blackdown is a largish area. Assuming a literal description, the ‘descent to the east’ could be from the trig down to Burrington finger post.

Mendip is slippery and rocky – its the nature of the soils and geology – you won’t find much in the way of trail centre type surfaces and you will have to work most of the trails to extract fun and flow. There are many and varied entirely off-piste routes and trails on the ‘dips and the best thing to do is follow your nose, using the ROW network as a framework.

The best of the riding can be found between Sandford and Rickford to the north, Charterhouse to the East, down to Draycott and Cheddar to the south and Axbridge to the south west.

The weather is on the turn now, and so are the trails.

If your after descent based riding, plenty of DH riding in Rowberrow, if it’s trail riding, get to know a local, the hidden network tends to be well hidden so as not to be over ridden. There is lots there, just get friendly with a local, you may gain some knowledge.

Make your way to The Crown at Churchill on a weekday evening, and there’s bound to be some local riders heading up into the hills. Or speak to Somerset Bikes in WsM, who arrange group rides (or at least used to).

There’s some great riding up on the Mendips, but it does suffer badly with the weather.

Bad Ass Bikes do a free pdf trail guide

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