I’m another one who loves the old Swinley. I often try to see how many trails I can ride without touching the official stuff. 20 miles is easily achieved.

New England is great but cheeky. The Twisty bit parallel to the fireroad on Blue route (Monaco?)

All 5 Downhillish routes – Original Deerstalker, Deerstalker right , BabyMaker , Does my Berm… , Axle Run and The trail with the traffic light.

As for Crowthorne, loads of stuff. Corkscrew is an absolute must. You can easily find 10-15 miles of constant singletrack and with Gorrick redesigning bits. Your spoilt between old & new.

Finally ‘Rollercoaster’ is always good fun. Loads of small drops probably kerb height but at speed great fun.

Thanks everyone.

Yes have done FOD and Afan and the Bike Park. Was thinking doing both the Monkey and Follow the Dog. If my legs are up to it on top of the drive may explore some off piste stuff. As for off Piste stuff is it better to explore within Follow the Dog area or is the Monkey area best?

Thanks everyone.

Yes have done FOD and Afan and the Bike Park. Was thinking doing both the Monkey and Follow the Dog. If my legs are up to it on top of the drive may explore some off piste stuff. As for off Piste stuff is it better to explore within Follow the Dog area or is the Monkey area best?

Yes I have found the same. A friend has the Garmin , orange coloured wrist device and when we do an average of say 15 miles there is at least a mile difference. If you look at his strava route it is definitely much more accurate. Also found the Iphone is also more accurate as long as it retains its signal.

Thanks ‘World Class Accident’ might try it one evening. As I remember last year it was a bit of a swamp then they destroyed all the good trails.

Rode there last year just before they bulldozed everything.

Haven’t been back since. What is running like now? Have the old trails been repaired and are there new ones?

Normally ride around Swinley and Farnborough way but if the trails are better might make a trip down one evening.

Could anyone post a map in a higher resolution? Seem to remember there was a link somewhere but looks like its been updated.

Thanks again

Hi Mattjg

I tried to work that out. Checked the pedals were tight, Seatpost clamp tight, Saddle tight although I am not sure how tight these things should be. Tried Riding without putting pressure on the saddle but still creaked. Tried Bouncing on the suspension. Still can’t work it out.

My old hardtail creaked but that was after several months maybe even a year couldn’t figure that out either.

Could it be the headset do you think?

In all honesty I appreciate it is unlikely it can be solved without seeing it!

I went there yesterday, everywhere is a swamp. The armoured trails are all closed i.e. whole 9 yards , stickler , tank traps ,seagul run and sattan’s grotto. Also they are cutting down trees galore guess it is a forest!

So for me its the worst I have seen it in 4 years.

However now the snow has gone you can see the new bits they are making which look awesome with loads of burms etc. Can’t wait for the summer.

I headed up to Bomb Holes and Corkscrew, Watsons Wander is now the width of a dual carriageway.

As for Jump Gulley I am sure its open but wouldn’t fancy it with all the rain we have had.

For me Swinley is going to be great the new armoured trails can we ridden all year round and Corkscrew etc at crowthorne side just need to settle down and dry out.

Mixed feelings about this. I have ridden Swinley weekly for a couple of years. Great if there are new trails but the beauty of Swinley is you can ride a different route each week.

Recently showed a friend around and we did 3 different routes all over 10 miles and only really repeated Stickler.

Rode there Tuesday and there were a few new bits around corkscrew I guess for the mtb event Sunday.

Anyway the charm of Swinley is the variety of routes if you want to ride stickler several times you can without following a linear trail.

Still having problems with google earth. I have loaded several routes saved them in my places. I have ‘ticked’ them all but they only seem to show if I change the time slider. I wanted to show them at the same time, i.e. tick the box to show which tracks will display. Then right click to change colours etc.

If anyone knows a better program to compare routes let me know.

Tryed search Google and posts also mentioned problems showing multiple routes however they were historic posts.

Thanks again Steve

Thanks for all the replies.

Yes my daughter and her friends are going to the festival. So I thought I would sneak off on the bike!

Thanks Wally for the offer of 100k maps but thats a bit out of my league.

Think I will just explore Brighstone, sounds as if there are a good few trails there.

Someone else mentioned Parkhurst Forest.

Anyway thanks again everyone.

There is a video on the Ride Swinley Site.

The actual place in Minley Manor which is between junction 4a & 4 of the M3 out of London.

Here is the link: http://www.rideswinley.com/

Yes its near Jump Gulley.

Looking down jump gulley if you climb the hill to your right until you come out at a firetrack you will see a fence in front of you. There is a gap in the fence take a left and the trail is alongside the reservoir. The trail is straight and then bends round to the right.

If you think this isn’t the one then let me know!

Thanks for all the advice.

I tryed Surrey Hills on Friday. Had a great time, found Yoghurt Pots and the Telegraph Trail and then was determined to find Summer Lighting on Leith Hill. Took me ages climbing all the Hills and was close to get letting a couple of times but well worth it.

Yoghurt pots was definately my favorite, will probably try Pitch Hill next time.

Those Hills are definately a work out compared to Swinley!

Thanks to all of you for the advice.

I may try Surrey hills again.

Last time I tryed I was on the hill with the Barry knows Best trail. Tryed it 3 or 4 times and what with all the climbing I was done for.

Guess I will have to explore another of the hills.

Thanks again for your help