People, I’m working away and staying in Barnstaple this week, I have all my kit so…

Where to ride?

Looking for off-road routes, ideally with waymarked trails, or really easy to follow directions. Willing to have a wee drive somewhere else to find some fun stuff. Don’t need anything too gnar, just want to get out.

Any and all suggestions welcome.

Oh and anything similar to that ^^^ in the Bridgwater area for a few weeks time?

Ta Muchly

Well you may think “boring, boring, boring” but if you want a flat, fast, easy blast by the water and through lovely scenery you can’t beat the Tarka Trail. Cafe stops en route too. And beaches. Best go early though, it will be busy at this time of year.
For something more gnar you’re really looking at Exmoor.

Oh and anything similar to that ^^^ in the Bridgwater area for a few weeks time?

The Quantocks!
Some of the best riding in the SW, actually IMO the whole south of the UK.

There’s some nice local stuff at Arlington which is only a couple of miles from Barnstaple and tonnes of riding on Exmoor just a few miles further down the road. Sometimes quite tricky to work out decent loops though and nothing specifically way marked for mountain bikers. A combination of an OS map / back issues of MBR / Strava Explore should point you in the right direction.

See also the Devon Coast to Coast and Braunton 150.
Not suggesting riding the whole of them but might point you in the direction of some riding.
There looks to be a natural route right round the coast but never ridden up there.

CBA to look it up but the Exeter train heads south out of Barnstaple so might be possible to take the train south to a conveniently distanced station and ride back on the DC2C?

Tarka Line

Bridgwater is Quantocks unless you are of a twitching bent in which case Steart nature reserve.
I don’t know if you can ride a bike in the reserve and but to and from could involve Hinckley Point traffic unless there is cycle route out there.

Exmoor all the way!! Loadsa amazingly sweet singletrack. Best area is dunkery, Porlock, horner area for steep and rooty rocky funtimes. I’d suggest parking in horner carpark and pedalling up the road to dunkery on the road, wicked descent off the top down to dickies path, take a right, fun traverse over to webber Post, then straight on down the descent into horner. Then pedal up granny’s ride to top of ley hill to pick up cats scramble descent back down to horner. If you’ve got the minerals, I’d head over to Porlock and up the epic climb to hawkcombe descent, it’s class and ends back in Porlock for a well deserved pint at the Ship. Not sure if Mark is running exmoor uplift atm, based in horner, saves you some monster climbs, but think he’s not gonna be running due to covid. Loadsa cheeky off piste enduro tracks around Minehead and selworthy too… Enjoy.

Thanks for all the input guys. May well be tarka trail this week. Wont get back to hotel til 5.30ish, so dont have all that long. Also, knowing me, exploring may mean a “late return” (read, I’ll get lost!) back for dinner. Same issue for Bridgwater/Quantocks (not working at Hinkley this time!) by the time I get back from site I wont have much time, and I dont know what times I can eat yet!

Now just need to sort somewhere near Weymouth for the week there before Bridgwater starts!

Tarka Trail to Braunton then American Road through Braunton Burrows. Then go up to Saunton Sands hotel to look at the view.

Not a bad idea zippy, I do like Saunton. Funnily enough I was looking at google maps earlier and wondered if I could get to Croyde Bay and back in a sensible time!

One of the reasons I moved from North Devon was the lack of local, decent mtb. You’re looking at over an hour of driving to access anything decent. Cracking road riding though.

I grew up in Braunton and have MTBing friends who still live there.

There’s a surprising amount of trails in that part of the world. Here’s the Strava heat map:

Overlay that with an OS Map to find the trails.

Great new pump track in Braunton. Bit tight for MTB, BMX better.

So if you remove the roads, footpaths and the Tarka Trail from that heatmap it leaves………..not much really?