[Closed] MTB around Basingstoke & Bracknell

Loads of XC the other side of the M3 at Basingstoke.

Anything good apart from Swinley?

As any good law abiding MTBer will tell you, there's nothing outside the official trails at Swinley, no sir-ee, nadda, zilch, nothing, pay no attention to the trails behind the curtain, stay on the yellow brick road, trail poaching is a crime.

Swinley is the dullest most uninspiring place to ride a bike in the south of england. IMO.

I live 20 mins away & havent been there in years,

However within a 30 - 90 mins radius is:-

rogate

tidworth

aston hill

qecp

okeford bikepark

windhill

417 flyup

Depends on what sort of riding you like really.

Edit - plus surrey hils, but I cba to work out where to ride there as its not marked.

Drive to Surrey Hills.... park at the Walking bottom car park and follow the nearest MTBer or your nose...

Edit – plus surrey hils, but I cba to work out where to ride there as its not marked.

This navigation ethic may be why you don't like Swinley.

p.s. Surrey has a capital S

p.p.s Hills has two Ls.

p.p.p.s it's has an apostrophe

Swinley is the dullest most uninspiring place to ride a bike in the south of england.

OTOH I love it. Boring at a gentle pace, an absolute blast flat out.

Depends where you are going to be but there's all the Tunnel Hill etc stuff too.

Swinley is worth doing and is signposted.

If you look at the Strava heatmap you'll see lot's of trails in areas where Gorrick hold their races but none of it is signposted so is good if you like exploring.................

If you look at the Strava heatmap you’ll see lot’s of trails in areas where Gorrick hold their races but none of it is signposted so is good if you like exploring……………..

Porridge Pot has been fenced off by the Army, and weirdly having hardly seen them all year, now that they've fenced PP off they've been on TH every time I've been over recently!

Tunnel Hill has been logged, it's still there but a lot of the trails are gone.

p.s. Surrey has a capital S

p.p.s Hills has two Ls.

p.p.p.s it’s has an apostrophe

YAWN

*paging CaptainFlashheart*

Link to Rights of Way including off road cycle routes, you need to open the map layers:

http://localviewmaps.hants.gov.uk/LocalViewmaps/Sites/ROWOnline/#

Rode Swinley at the weekend for the 1st time and to be honest I'd rather spend the time with my in-laws.  Now to give it it's credit I was recovering after 2 nights out but even so I struggle to see how it would be interesting even if I was on form, it was just tedious and contrived.  The stuff off the main trail looked way better.

Surrey hills on the other hand was awesome, lovely flowy trails that felt like they went on forever.

If you think Swinley is tedious, try Bedgebury.

Bedgebury is my nearest place that I can ride year round as the local north downs becomes a gloopy, slippery mud pit with lovely flesh tearing flint mixed in after about half a day of rain.

It's pretty flat but they've done what they can with the lack of elevation, it's got a 'black' run but that's only because it has several 1ft drops, that's as wild as it gets.

Swinley is awesome compared to Bedgebury. They'll be my regular riding spots during winter unless I can find my way around Surrey Hills and find which trails are good through winter, while avoiding the drops and jumps.

There are lots of small local centres, see the places above if you are keener on downhill trails and jumps/berms/roots, but obviously it's not massive elevation anywhere (ground conditions are great at the moment though). Rogate or Tidworth need you to register online first (for free) and pay when you ride.

Bracknell area and south has woodland/heathland trail networks if you know where you are going. Basingstoke area is more rambling xc, with bridleways and doubletrack and the occasional good bit of singletrack.

I struggle to see how it would be interesting

Lap after lap going faster and faster on each section, refining your line, your timing, increasing power on the ups, getting more air on the jumps, being smoother each time - great fun.  Of course there's more to MTBing than that, fortunately it's not the only place I ride 🙂

Of course if you don't ride like that you wouldn't like it, but there's unofficial off-piste in there too.  So I've heard... maybe..

@howsyourdad, as a grammer pendant or for local knowledge?

😁

There's loads of lovely bridleway, track and trail fun and games to be had to the north, South and West of the Stoke. Great conditions at the moment as well.

A nice ride can be had across the top of Watership Down, then back down to the pub of the same name for a beer or three. Bike friendly, excellent beer

Strange how nobody likes riding Swinley (it's soooo boring) and yet the car pack is packed with mountain bikers at the weekend........

Thanks all. I'll try Surrey hills as there are trails on 'Trailforks' marked there so should be easy enough to follow. I'm just not used to the traffic down that way as I'm from near Aberdeen in Scotland. I much prefer 'natural' challenging xc trails/paths to trail centres but without local knowledge it's tricky to find elsewhere.

I much prefer ‘natural’ challenging xc trails/paths to trail centres but without local knowledge it’s tricky to find elsewhere.

You're not going to find much of that down here I'm afraid - Surrey hills is your best bet. There are *natural trails but again not up to the standard up north.

*natural meaning byways and bridleways, i.e. not natural at all but not trail centres.

If you've been spoiled by Scottish riding then pretty much anything down here is going to feel a bit 'tame'! Welcome to how the other half (or other 10% it seems on here!) live, scrambling to find half a mile of decent singletrack in a 12 mile ride from my house is my alternative to 10+ miles of purpose built trails at Swinley, Bedgebury etc.

I used to ride a lot around Basingstoke. There's plenty of pleasant bridelway riding from town (heading towards Alton and also down towards Winchester). Not very gnar but I enjoyable for what it is. There used to be some good singletrack in Blackwood forest but no idea any more it was years ago I was there and there's been development there for the forest lodges.

Molgrips has the right idea, Swinley is only rewarding if you go into each section trying to smash your PB.

Riding Stickler at 99% with a hangover would be like purgatory. Smashing into the corners and sprinting every straight until you vomit (and never take the shortcut halfway) and it makes a very perverse sort of sense.

Having said that Red 2-3 is, ermmmm, difficult to enjoy.