Hi,

I live in Reading and Swinley Forest is my local riding spot. I’m 24 and wondered if there were any other local singletrack/all mountain riders around that meet regularly at Swinley at weekends who I could join?

Tim

We need to pester Phill for another sexyparty, I’d show your ound but I’m not local anymore (untill september anyway)

London Calling

Swinley Facebook group

@thisisnotaspoon errr…no sexyparty with Phill please

Cheers for the links

There are a number of active clubs in the area have a look at BOB (Berks on Bikes) and Tunnel Hill Trolls. I’m a member of BOB and we have regular evening rides on tuesday and thursday nights and Saturday and Sunday at 10am.

http://www.bobmbc.com

@thisisnotaspoon errr…no sexyparty with Phill please

It’s not (quite) as bad as it sounds, I think the name came up as a counter to Cinnamon-Girl’s singles only ride.

+1 for going out with the Trolls, great bunch. Most of the meeting points are 10-20minutes south of Swinley though so you’ll need a car (or a lift). Tuesday is an easy-ish pace, but they’re experts at not stopping (2-3 stops in a 2 hour ride) so you can actualy cover a good distance on a night ride. Thursday is a fair bit faster, done it a few times but found it hard to commit to keeping fit enough.

Went for a ride with BOB once, and have never encountered such epic levels of faffage, even on STW rides! Maybe I just picked a bad week!

I live in Reading and the hills just outside Reading are my local riding spot. Swinley’s damn good but don’t overlook what’s on your doorstep.

I can understand what you say about BOB!, we have 290 members now, so the occasional ride for new members can attract a real mixture of both really experienced riders and people in trainers on BSO’s and there are a few older members of the club who don’t do much to sway the image that we have with others.

But within the club there is core group of about 20-30 who ride reguarly ride at a good pace, with stops only really for mechanicals and who do a large number of away trips to FOD, Exmoor, Peaks etc (i’m organising a trip for 20 for a week to morzine etc).

Various members of BOB are also behind the Gorrick races, contribute to the Test Valley Tour, Brass Monkeys etc as well and we are the only club that have permission to build and maintain new trails in Swinley (although within very tight constraints)

But enough of the sales pitch, we may run into the Trolls again tonight and they usually out number us considerably on a tuesday night!

Scud – wasn’t there some talk of a new scheme where non-Bobsters could assist with trail building? I’d be happy to help out but CBA with the whole bike club thing.

Scud – wasn’t there some talk of a new scheme where non-Bobsters could assist with trail building? I’d be happy to help out but CBA with the whole bike club thing.

+1

I wasn’t really looking for a club either, but more just some peeps to ride with now and again. I moved back down from the North to the area so I don’t really know what else is around Reading apart from Swinley Forest @ormondroyd what hills are you talking about?

I’ve done some damn awesome rides whilst I was up North, Lee Quarry is a great ride and recently went to Cannock Chase and the black run there is epic!

So yeah, let me know if anyone is interested to meeting up? We could then organise a trip to Megavalanche!

I’m heading down Saturday morning at around 10 am with few mates from work. Not ridden a mountain bike for a year so looking forward to it, email in porfile if you fancy hooking up….

I’ve done some damn awesome rides whilst I was up North, Lee Quarry is a great ride and recently went to Cannock Chase and the black run there is epic!

If your standards are that low then Swinley is right up your street!

Cannock is good, but isn’t and never wil be ‘epic’. Swinley’s quite like Cannock.

Other good bits localy are Tunnel Hill (but you’ll need the trolls to show you arround as it’s impossible to navigate yourself). It’s a bit liek Swinley, but with about 0.1% of the traffic so its all ‘natural’ singletrack and not a 3meter wide muddy swamp. Crowthorne woods is really part of Swinley, but some people insist on refering to them seperately. Like tunnel hill you’l need a guide.

The Chilterns are good for propper XC rides, but it’s less technical with the exception of a couple of well hidden and not so well hidden DH tracks. The Thames path out of Pangbourne was either built by an MTBer or the best bit of accidental man made singletrack ever, very easy to build up silly speeds, just a shame it’s wasted with walkers.

There is talk of being able to invite non BOB’s now to help out with the trail building yes and it is going to happen at some point, from what i understand it is always a difficult trying to get Crown Estate, Forestry Commision (for Crowthorne side) and the forests users to agree on things.

I think the issue with non-BOB’s is one of insurance which is what they are having to address.

Well, I’ve only been riding for about 2 months (properly) and that’s all I’ve ridden so far. I think I prefer Cannock to Swinley though.

Cheers for the advice.

The Thames path out of Pangbourne was either built by an MTBer or the best bit of accidental man made singletrack ever

Oh yes.

But theres some great XC singletrack around elsewhere, for sure. And I keep finding more of it even though I’ve been riding round here for over a decade.

The Thames path out of Pangbourne was either built by an MTBer or the best bit of accidental man made singletrack ever

Even more so now the Hartslock steps have been removed, it’s awesome now, but I’m a little nervous there will be a doddery walker at the bottom!!

Looking for a ‘riding buddy’ but don’t want to join a club?

I was thinking the same last year, but an old friend suggested that joining a club would be better and now i have 50+ riding buddies, so there is always someone up for a ride (and persuading me to go for a ride!)

A mixed bag of abilities has helped spur me on, increasing my fitness and technique 10-fold

A good club would also help you learn all the local trails, not just the ones in Swinley or Tunnel Hill

Follow Scud’s advise – i think you’d be pleasantly surprised

+1 for BOB

and there are a few older members of the club who don’t do much to sway the image that we have with others

If he reads this you are dead 😈

+1 for Bob or any club – as Boltonjon above says!