Not going to reveal where exactly ‘Brendan’s’ track is. It was so insanely steep it bordered on ridiculous! However, i shall be returning soon for another attempt that’s for sure.

As for the number of tracks…yes there are more than enough for a day. I love the variety of them. Many start quite flowy with superb rooty sections and then get steep towards the bottom.

I prefer Helter Skelter into that VVV personally….TBH any trail in that area is superb. VVV was my favourite until we did High Voltage this year…..now THAT is an amazing trail!

The thing with Leigh Woods is that the trails on the flatter parts of the woods were horrible in winter and completely unsustainable! The best trails IMO are all the descents into the Gorge plus a few others that have remained untouched. Any other trails that existed have been completely destroyed by the harvesting operations carried out during the summer. So much so that i can’t see many, if any, ever being reclaimed. The same applies in Ashton Hill Plantation.

To be fair, LW probably hasn’t seen harvesting operations like that since the MTB first came to the area and trails started to be formed. So i guess it had to happen eventually!

Triscombe surely? Superb variety of tracks and the push up is pretty quick and allows you to access tracks in sections or from top to bottom.

Spent the day there on Sunday and it was superb. Did 8-9 runs in 4 hours including ‘Brendan’s’ track…the steepest track i’ve ever ridden/walked down!

Only an hour from South Bristol too :D

Fitted some of these for my Alps trip this year, 3 weeks in Davos and then the Les Arc area. They were superb really. Rolled fast yet gripped well too, including a very wet and muddy day in Tignes bike park! They looked barely worn after those 3 weeks.

Also, set-up tubeless on Flow rims with a track pump with ease.

Thankfully being in the ‘trade’ meant RRP wasn’t such as issue!

The White Room is superb! Great food and the trails are amazing. We spent the last week of a 3 week Alps trip with them this summer. It was our third stay with them. We always do the Backcountry weeks as they offer the best value and you get to really explore some seldom ridden singletrack. Can’t recommend them enough.

I loved my 2011 Heckler. It started out with 150 Float’s and RP23 and ended up with Lyriks and a 5th Element. It was great in either guise to be honest. Spent a very happy 3 weeks in the Alps with it in the heavy set-up.

I have owned several single pivot bikes and have never felt pedal bob! I came to the Heckler from a Nicolai Helius AM and there was no obvious difference in stiffness IMO.

Only sold it as i needed the cash :(

Blackdown is the area of moorland surrounding the trig point (called Beacons Batch). Roeberrow is the small forest plantation to the west of Blackdown. Pretty much all the bridleways are well worth riding.

We usually start our rides from the bottom of Burrington Coombe and then ride up the road then up onto Blackdown. That way you have a superb descent back to the car (from the trig point) via a number of different ways, the best of which aren’t on any maps!

The nitrogen charge in the rebound circuit of the shock will have forced outwards the pin that the rebound knob moves when turned. I learnt that the hard way!

No option but to sent to Mojo/LoCo/TF Tuned for a service.

Next to no chance of warranty either as you clearly fiddled with it yourself rather than just send it straight off to get looked at.

Sorry.

Hi mah05,

We (Bike Bristol in Clifton) have a brand new 17″ Five Pro as our shop demo if you want a test ride. Give us a call or pop in.

Cheers,

Nick.

This happened back in the early spring i think. My wife and i chose to do the route quite literally a day or so before the top section was flattened. We encountered the JCB about halfway down before the first gate. By the next weekend he had literally flattened the whole lot!

To be fair it’s only a short technical sectoin at the top that changed. The bridleway that starts (the one lined with hedges either side)just after that gate at the bottom is actually more fun anyway.

La Varda is amazing and this year ‘that’ switchback is ALOT harder due to a huge slab of rock that has slid down and blocked it!

We did High Voltage this year and that is my new favorite trail.

+1 for the White Room!

Riding in the Tarentaise Valley = The White Room…..simples :D

You can’t run a 12mm bolt thru axle on a 575. The biggest axle diameter you could run is 10mm. You could convert your Pro2 to 10mm Bolt-thru and then use a 10mm QR like the DT Swiss RWS skewers.

I ran that axle on a set of Tricon wheels and it was certainly stiffer than the QR wheels they replaced.

The majority of the tracks in Ashton Hill Plantation are now destroyed thanks to extensive logging operations. The place is almost un-recognisable now! There are a couple of tracks at the Long Ashton end that have survived but that’s it. Nearly every path has been driven down by the huge machinery they used to remove trees.

In regards to Leigh Woods, can anyone explain what the hell the trail builders were thinking?! Rode all the surfaced stuff we could find last night and apart from the sporadic ‘feature’ it was all flat corners and no interesting bits whatsoever. I love the new AC trails and despite riding most of it daily as part of my commute i’m not bored of it. LW on the other hand is awful!! Just as well the best bits have remained untouched.

We just got back from 3 weeks in the Alps including 10 days in Davos. Switzerland may not be the cheapest place but if you stay anywhere in Davos or Klosters you are entitled to a FREE lift pass! You only have to pay to carry your bike on the lifts. This is usually 5CHF a time or 10CHF for a day pass! There are some superb tours you can follow but i would recommend buying the Davos/Klosters Singletrail map for 25CHF and get it from Ivans Velo Sport. The map indicates the best trails in the area according to difficulty.

The majority of stuff we found was really flowy contour type stuff, Most of the trails make superb use of the elevation.

The best bit is that the lfts are open until 23rd October!

Email in profile should you like more info.

The fact that so many cyclists are fair weather types and the ‘there’s something new to ride’ novelty factor has worn off means there’s bound to be a sharp drop in numbers.

Not that i see ever any one at 7:30 in the morning!

I’m sitting in the White Room chalet right now so i’m going to recommend them for area as a whole. This is our third summer stay here and we love it! Trail addiction are very popular too.

Spent today riding Tignes lifts (for free!) as it’s their last day of the season although the weather is awful right now.

Les Arc is amazing but the valley as a whole offers so much more riding. Vehicle uplift and guide is needed to the most out of the place though. The riding here really has every thing from stupidly flowy to technical and everything inbetween.

Hecklers HA with a 140mm fork is 69….not as trendy as the latest full-sussers but with 160mm Lyriks it’s superb IMO. The HA is the only thing old school about them.

The latest slack HA full sussers just don’t do it for me. Having owned a 2009 Orange 5 and a 2010 Zesty, neither made for good all-rounders where as my 2011 Heckler is just plain fun and doesn’t feel compromised on anything so far. Off to the Alps tomorrow for 3 weeks so we’ll see how it feels spending most of it’s days descending!

Surely the damage an MX bike does to surfaced trails is less than that of non-surfaced ones?

We rode the Vedrerers a week before the offical opening and i noticed MX tyre tracks running across it and along it. The damage to the non-surfaced parts was far worse.

Bloody stupid to be riding on a bike trail when they have an entire forest to play in!

Run Lyriks on mine.

Used the RP23 mine came with at first then fitted a 5th Element. Recently re-fitted the RP23 for a comparison and it felt awful. Coil shock went straight back on!

I’ve gone from Orange 5 to Zesty to Nicolai Helius AM to Heckler.

Single pivot for me! Zesty just blew through it’ s travel way too easily despite constant fettling of shock pressure (before it snapped!) and the Helius was just plain boring. It never felt particularly fast and was just un-inspiring to ride.

Heckler (with a coil shock) is just superb. Fast when you pedal hard and soaks up square edged hits much better than the Helius did.

As mentioned already though, i think geometry is also a big factor in things.

I had this on a customers bike last week (Orange P7 with Hope rotors) and i found that the rotor hadn;t been ground flat properly resulting in small depressions across the braking surface. You could see the brush marks from the surface finish used on the steel sheets.

Might be worth taking a closer look at the rotors.

Coil U-Turn Lyriks get my vote (on my 2011 Heckler).

Really plush, and plenty stiff. The Bos Devilles might be tempting but are you going to get the most out of them?

The Lyriks have been superb so far but the next 3 weeks in the Alps should be an even better test! I rarely use the U-Turn adjust and have 3 clicks of Low Speed Compression applied, i havn’t touched the High Speed Compression yet…or used the Floodgate. Not the lightest but that really makes naff all difference IMO.

OTT for trail centre’s?! Right you are.

I got full travel from every fork i’ve owned as i know how to set them up!! Clearly you don’t.

SBrock: Nice forks, enjoy :D I run U-Turn Lyriks and have found them superb but would have chosen the Fox’s if their trade prices weren’t so horrific :wink:

I never keep a bike long enough to find out how long stuff lasts. Although my wife’s XT BB is still going strong after 2.5 years….so much for Shimano BB’s being crap!

Italy??? They’re French but nevermind!

Strange question anyway.

Heckler with Coil or Air shock and a U-Turn/Talas fork….perfect IMO.

Minions!

Got the new 2.5 DHF EXO 3C tyres on my Heckler (set-up easily on Stans Flow rims) and they are superb so far,as it’s early days. Got 2.5 weeks in the Alps coming up so we’ll see how they fare.

The 2.35 do come up narrow though hence going for 2.5’s. Weight wise both were between 850g and 900g, can’t remember exactly how much though.

+1 for Coil U-Turn Lyriks.

Not strictly mine….actually my wife’s Ashton Court bike…yep….one bike for one trail, and it’s perfect although please excuse the temporary long stem!!!

Greetings to all you early morning AC lurkers! I too pass through there most mornings. Usually come up Providence Lane and in at the Quarry trail and contine round to the gatehouse, then into Clifton.

It sure beats going there in the evenings…i’m staggered at how busy it is since the trails opened.

Nearly ploughed into two people coming up from the Suspension Bridge end….despite the fact they had cycled past the ‘No Entry’ signs :roll:

Bring it on! Got a week with Stevo/Iona in The White Room in a few weeks time.

I shall be bugging Stevo to do La Varda again…i need to clean the above switchback this year.

Did 2 laps this afternoon. All the sections are open and running superbly. Love the revamped ‘downhill’ section after New Barn Wood. Loads of people out enjoying the new trails.

Briefly ran my 2011 Heckler with 150mm Fox 32’s but it just didn’t feel right.

Now running RS Lyrik Coil U-turn’s…..now THAT’S more like it!!!! Absolutly lovely. Got a 5th Element coil on the back too and the combination is great.

It’s going to be a fun 3 weeks Alps trip soon.

You’d think we’d lost some sort of MTB mecca when you read some of the criticism regarding the new trails!!! AC and LW are, to me at least, flat but fun trails to get my commuting fix on. The weekends are for going further afield to ride more challenging stuff.

Some people seem to forget that this is public money to be spent getting more people into MTB not soley to appeal to a bunch of narrow minded, stuck in their ways, £”$%s!

The negative comments are soooooo predictable. One things for sure, come winter you’ll be bloody thankful.

Will the haters give up riding AC and LW surfaced trails?…….of course not. They’ll ride them, enjoy them, maybe even smile abit but still slag them off.

Boxfixh: You’re entitled to your opinions…..but you’re wrong of course.

LW won’t be the same as they’re unable to machine lay alot of the new stuff due to every thing being that bit tighter. Most of the new trail surface will be hand laid basically, as i understand it at least.

None of Ashton Court’s trails were difficult anyway, just unpleasant to ride for most of the year. Given all the rain lately, i’d say it gives a good indication of how well the new trails will hold up over winter.