Might have spoken to some of you? I was the very tall bloke on the very very big green Independent Fabrications hardtail

I missed 2 and 7. Didn’t expect to get as many checkpoints as i did, so I ignored 2 on the way out (why get 20pts and miss 200, after all)

Strava has my route as 26.7miles, 1870 feet climbed

I went clockwise starting with the set out to the east. Didn’t realise how far I’d get, so planned a high scoring sub loop rather than planning to complete. very pleased to have got all but two CPs but your point about the clockwise loop is a good one.

(thought I might clean it at one point but just ran out of legs after about 16 checkpoints)

Good ride and nice write up. I got 1950 points (8th of 17 in single men) which is pretty good for me. It’s years since I’ve done one of these and I’m only really properly back riding this year after a major lull. Great trails and lovely weather, I really enjoyed it.

I climb like a pallet of breeze blocks. Will I die?

Had a chinook fly through Reading last week. I was sitting out in the garden with the cat. As the thing roared by, the cat completely missed it because he was following the patch a few hundred yards behind it, where the sound was coming from.

Dashed – oh agreed, for me it’s an interesting new route to the chilterns, and perhaps on opportunity for a little loop from home for a quick 10-miler.

Frodo – while everyone’s talking about pies and petrol, they’ve privatised the NHS. You could argue they’ve played a blinder

Scraping together some sort of semi-excuse for the poor woman, I don’t think everyone realises that petrol doesn’t burn nice and politely like paraffin. Nor should they normally be worried about that, because normally cynical politicians aren’t telling them to keep petrol at home.

Yep, just found those Youtube videos. It’s the same bombhole I saw. It’s about here:

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=465030&y=175670&z=120&sv=465030,175670&st=4&ar=y&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf&dn=779&ax=465030&ay=175670&lm=0

There’s a big bombhole on the north end of that permissive bridleway, near Purley. Singletrack wise I’ve not looked at the woods to the south of the road yet, just the north route from the car park towards Purley. But there was loads even before the car park.

If you face into the car park from the road, the entrance to the bridleway is to the leftish, about 10o’clock. If you go down the most visible fire-road from the car park, you’re missing it already.

(by the way, the road downhill from that car park is fun on a road bike)

Annoyingly I bust a spoke and slightly pringled my wheel, so ended up getting the train back from Pangbourne, rather than riding home via more swoopy stuff.

Oh, and there were lots of dogwalkers in Sulham, including one pair of women who had a bloody uncontrolled bear off the lead. “Oh he won’t hurt you, he’s a softie”, as the snarling bloody thing, the size of a st Bernard, circled me staring, barking and growling. Little won’t-hurt-a-fly had to be held by the neck as I slinked off.

I’ll answer my own question. It’s actually very good indeed.

There’s a load of singletrack in there. In particular there’s a really nice permissive bridleway running from the car park here, to Purley on Thames.

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=464745&y=174560&z=120&sv=464745,174560&st=4&ar=y&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf&dn=779&ax=464745&ay=174560&lm=0

Lots of swoopy singletrack, gradually downhill northwards from the car park, curves round with the woods and joins that footpath by the Purley on Thames lettering on the map.

Chuffed to bits really… after all these years I’ve got another ride-out route to the good stuff from West Reading.

I used a small drill bit to mess up the screw heads on my hinges and lock clasps, so a screwdriver won’t get any bite. Just a small thing really.

Current/recent pros riding in Sport? Toss like that has always put me off XC racing.

I used to have an office 31 miles from home.

I’d drive in, ride back, then next morning ride in, and then drive back at the end of day 2.

It worked fine. I tried riding both ways in a day and just felt crap in the evening, didn’t enjoy it.

(1hr 43minutes was my best time, Reading to Hounslow, despite all the red lights and traffic on the A4. And that was on a singlespeed. graaawww)

I used to ride IRC Mud Mads, which seemed perfect to me. They’d keep rolling through anything. The rest of the people I rode with mostly went for Trailrakers, and I never got more than a “Yeah, they’re okay” from them.

I miss Mud Mads.

Anyone opinions on Nano Raptors?

Yes, I’m a big fan. For summer riding in the Chilterns, I love them. Fast as hell on the thin centre ridge line (hence a great Trailquest tyre), they stick well to hardpack singletrack corners, and even when you’re throwing the bike around corners full of leafmush and plant litter, they slide a little but predictably and fast. And I don’t suffer badly from punctures either even though they’re quite light.

Obviously it’s a limited tyre, for certain conditions, but they’re very good at that. Here’s one in its natural habitat.

The fact that it’s tasteless piss ensured I’d never drink Budweiser again

You should be able to stop in the distance you can see ahead. Isn’t that obvious? If you hit something slow/stationary on a trail, because you couldn’t stop in time, it’s your fault. Small kid, fallen tree, crashed rider, whatever.

And it’s worth sticking a compass on a lanyard round your neck too. Got me out of a bit of directional numptiness earlier

Are Rapid Robs that bad for their intended role as a balls-out XC race tyre? I ride WTB nanoraptors a lot. Another Xc race tyre and great on hard packed forest and open country trails, and predictable breakaway on looser stuff. If I rode them on anything wet or rocky or wet and rocky, I’d find them crap.

I fell horribly out of love with Cotinental verticals on the trail round Ullswater on a wet day. Felt like they had a coating of that slimy green stuff around rock pools.

Won a set of Geax something or others as a spot prize at some event or other. They were shite. 2.3″ but came up about 1.9. Thick black cheap feeling rubber. Draggy without being grippy. Eurhh

Did you have the map on your bars? To me it’s essential. However, I don’t have a fancy map board. I just use a bit of gaffer tape to make 3 strong punched holes… Top corners and centre-bottom… and zip tie it fairly loosely. Does the job with minimum obscuring of front wheel

Got all the checkpoints apart from a 20 and 60. I know a lot of people cleaned the course but I’m happy with that

I’m still laughing at the sport relief mile on Watership Down, specifically their use of horse starting stall thingies to send runners off along the gallops

That was lovely today. Amazing trail conditions in a beautiful area. Would have been a tough one in the mud.

Anyone who doesn’t enjoy that sweep along the top of Watership Down is probably a zombie. Just a warning

Haha, everyone hates that false flat slog eastwards through Crays Pond, right? I have a great loop from Reading to Goring and back via woodcote, and that’s the only bad bit. Just not many linkup options right round there

I’m 6’7″ and really can’t use most off the peg bikes at all. Screwed up my meniscus cartilage as a result of riding 21″ bikes that were too small.

I’ve got a custom hardtail which works out at about 22.5″. But my 22″ Surly karate monkey fits perfectly too. Take a look at their big frames

I’m not fast but I’m sometimes around Woodcote.
I’m usually on a massive green Independent Fabrication hardtail, or a massive green Surly Karate Monkey singlespeed 29er.

Can’t comment on the Inbred. I do love my KM thought. Not the most subtle frame but a great fun ride, and ludicrously adaptable (mine’s been a long flat commute speed bike, a London street hack, and is now in its normal mode as a Chilterns winter Singlespeed)

An example of that conflict is in Reading… last year the council decided that as it was (in their view) a footpath, they’d put up no cycling signs on the section between Reading and Caversham bridges (notwithstanding the fact that this effectively broke the national cycle network and pushed people onto a horrible urban dual carriageway).

This seems to have been to appease some batty residents of the riverfront. I’ve seen a horrible woman yell at people down there before (e.g. when I ambled just off the path into a tiny unfenced gravel car park bit to let people past… she came storming out yelling at me about how it was private property. “Yes, stupid that, isn’t it?” didn’t go well with the old goat).

And then Reading council got egg on their face when it turned out to be a British Waterways towpath and therefore legal to cycle and not their jurasdiction. They’ve settled for a couple of chicanes to slow people down… fair enough.

I rode most of the stuff on that route yesterday and it was pretty much all fine. Only found a few patches of mud anywhere… enough to leave a bit on the frame but nothing much on the drivetrain.

Depends how much rain falls between now and then, I guess, but it probably won’t be too bad as the ground’s not really soaked through already.

Happy to meet up sometime to show you around stuff down this way (I’m a somewhat creaky 36 year old with dodgy knees and the biggest bike you’ve ever seen), but it can’t be this weekend.

Just put together a ride from Pangbourne for some colleagues at work… might be of interest (I don’t think it’s too bad a drive from Kidlington). This has some of my favourite stuff at the Reading end of the Chilterns… the Thames path section I mentioned earlier, a view at one point from the edge of the scarp right across to Didcot and beyond, and lots of woodland singletrack including a fantastically fast section out of Woodcote that just demands to be ridden flat out (once you’ve crossed the 12 foot long permapuddle at the start).

http://my.viewranger.com/route/details/ODQzMw%3D%3D

I’ve also bought that route guide too! I know it well round here but always good to find new stuff.

Do take some sort of map if you can. OS Explorer are best (1:25000) and Landranger (1:50000) good too. The art of chilterns riding is to link up bridleways, sometimes with short bits of road. It’s hard just to wing it. That said, in bigger woodland bits you can often pootle around exploring random tracks anyway

When it’s muddy it’s very muddy but you shouldn’t have to worry about that yet. Stick some money aside in autumn for good mud tyres but for now enjoy the summer.

By the way, one other point is that the trails are often very quiet. The big ones like the Ridgeway and Thames path (bear with me on that latter one… It’s mostly flat footpath but Whitchurch to Goring is a HUGE exception to that, brilliant piece of trail) are busier of course, but often you’ll barely see another person out there. Which makes cheeky footpath linkups something that might be an option to consider at times. Obviously that’s very bad and I wouldn’t condone it for a minute 🙂

If you find yourself wanting a bit more of a trail-centre type experience, there’s places like Swinley (Bracknell) and Aston Hill, too, a shortish road trip away

Woodland and farm tracks. Short sharp climbs, Clay and chalk trails. Pretty. The trails aren’t really cohesive obvious routes/loops, more like lots of random stuff that you link up in different ways… The “mesh” of bridleways I mentioned. Lots of them, varying from twisty singletrack to doubletrack farm roads

The thing is, there is SO much stuff out there that (perhaps unlike big northern routes) it’s hard to describe routes to you, or to let you know which bridleways are really good. There are a few long distance trails like the Ridgeway but the best stuff, of which there is a shitload, is buried in the woods

So I’d suggest some or all of…

– navigate your own way around with maps/map software and explore. It’s a huge mesh of bridleways. I love just finding them and learning the good ones. Map reading will really pay off as you learn this way. I can point out some good sections to try linking up, as I’m sure can others… Where are you based?
– find a local club or group rides on here. London MTb on FB seem to do Chiltern rides, for instance
– do way marked events like Evans and Trailbreak rides.

I hope youll absolutely love it. Great age to start.