You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Two of us paid a visit yesterday. £2.50 for as long as you want to ride including a wash off of your bike afterwards. He was trying out his new singlespeed, I was trying to get my off-road mojo back by playing down the woods on what was essentially a 'let's go over and take a look, it's almost on our doorstep' kind of day. He like singletrack thrills and spills and I'm more epic all day XC rides. It's a bike park, not a trail centre and reminded me of Penshurst (PORC) back in the late 90's. Not entirely dissimilar to Tilgate but a lot quieter, or St Leornard's Forest but not as full of dog walkers.
Lots of longish XC climbs leading to little copses, and shaws, and woods for rooty, and slippery-when-wet North Shore, style fun. Outside the woods themselves it was a little muddy at the bottom of each climb but once a few metres are gained it all goes sand stony and dries out. Inside the woods it's play time. Graded routes clearly way marked on the trees in yellow blue and red paint. We tackled a few of the red bits without incident but left a couple for next time. I don't think we found them all and we certainly didn't find and ride all the yellows. Whooping fun on the yellow double track and lots and lots of discrete but entertaining loops to be done in the various compact wooded spaces. I came off twice at low speed due to my innate clumsiness and inability to avoid simply coming off for no good reason whilst riding along minding my own business and went down once when my rut hopping technique failed.
Couple of bits are taped off/out-of-bounds and the whole riding area needs a bit of tlc and a few bob spending (I think the fee is far too cheap) but it is the end of the worst summer since 1456, or whenever, so go figure.
Some small log jumps, all roll-able, and one or two small ramps (not roll able) Very quiet - we saw one woman and labrador in two-and-a-half hours in the morning.
Great place for beginners, great place for returners, like me, to rediscover confidence, muddy climbs are great for pedalling and weight distribution technique, and some are of enough length and height gain to really get the heart going if tackled enthusiastically. Tiny skills area near the entrance with some barbeque for summer broiling.
End result he got his brand new singlespeed dirty and I got a teeny bit of confidence back (and a bad attack of chain suck).
Small bikeshop on site, respectable hire fleet was just going out at lunchtime when we left, workshop looks well equipped. Cafe on site too, stupidly cheap. A tea, a coffee, a diet coke, a snickers and a kitkat for £2.60 on the edge of one of the wealthiest towns in southern England. Put your prices up fellas! Toilets to hand and decent parking.
I'll be going back.
Used to race there fairly often, it was fun in the dry, but absolutely hellish in the wet, and it was usually wet! Never used to be any graded paths or owt, sounds like they've done some work.