[Closed] Places to ride, drivable from North Kent

im sure you must have already tried Blue Bell Hill, Kings Wood and Blean?

the cyclopark has a 'proper xc track' lol. if you havent been already i would also give Betteshanger a miss.

otherwise i suspect there is lots of the surrey hills you havent ridden as pretty much everyone only ever rides the same few trails.

you might also want to try Ceasars Camp.

Train to Winchester and the south downs way is an XC classic but obviously much more than just a day out visiting somewhere.

Rogate if you fancy some DH

do the extra hours drive to Forest of Dean

Covert woods, not far from Canterbury.

I'm in Maidstone and they are my 'local' trails.

Places I ride:

Covert woods - around 15 different trails, natural man made, some berms, bomb holes, lots of roots, the odd drop. Brilliant place. All the runs are between 1-2 minutes worth easy fire road climbs.
Blue Bell Hill above Maidstone - 4-5 trails, a few decent ones but nothing amazing.
Ranscombe country park - 3-4 trails, most pretty good, OK for an hour or so.

Surrey hills
Bedgebury
Friston Forest
QECP

For local stuff, Covert is my go to. 45 mins drive and can spend 2 hours riding there and not ride everything.

This is a typical session there:
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Honestly though, if you've got leave to take, drive the 4 hours to either south Wales or the Peak District and stay the night for £60 - you'll be able to do 2 rides and the trails will be infinitely better than anything Kent can offer.

Thanks for the suggestions. Never been to Bluebell Hill, Kings Wood, Blean, or Covert woods so they're now on my list.

Forest of Dean is 3.5 hours from here so a bit far without an overnight stay. Or sleep in the car.

South downs way is on my list too. Really wanted to try it in December but conditions would have been a bit sketchy. When I do the SDW I'd have to ride a bit then ride back to where I started so would probably cover about 15 miles (out) and 15 miles (back) at a time. Any suggestions on where to start? Could make it several visits to cover it all.

Also have a look at Steyning, Stoughton & Hindhead.

I used to live between Dartford and swanley and there is quite a lot there for small rides , Joydens wood , Farningham wood , North down way , near Sevenoaks too .

I used to live between Dartford and swanley and there is quite a lot there for small rides , Joydens wood , Farningham wood , North down way , near Sevenoaks too .

Yeah they're my local rides nd usually link all of those with Lullingtoo. Looking to travel out a bit further now as I've ridden so much more this last year and need something new.

Twisted Oaks is the wrong side of the river up near Ipswich but well worth the trip (unless a bike park isn’t something you enjoy)

https://twistedoaks.co.uk/v2/

Any suggestions on where to start?

From the SDW section I cycle the roads on between Cheesefoot Head and South Harting, I'd suggest start at The Milburys pub and ride the ~14.2 mile section to Butser Hill or a another couple of miles to QECP. But then you could argue starting ~5 miles further west at Cheesefoot Head works if you're not bothered about facilities where you park up.

From there, you have the option of either heading south into Chalton to maybe use The Red Lion for some refreshment, or WSW to The Bat And Ball pub on the eastern edge of Hambledon.

Plenty of options of how to get back to The Milburys, if you wanted to deviate off the SDW route.

Why not do a ‘point to point’ on the SDW.
Start at Eastbourne, the ride as far as you’d like (brighton 30 ish mile) and the train back to Eastbourne for the car.

There are a fair few stations on the way should you want to dive off sooner, or indeed go on to Worthing and train back through brighton.

Or indeed the SDW in 2 days, staying overnight at the Truleigh Hill youth hostel up from Shoreham?

You have Oldbury, Mereworth and Penshurst Bike Park fairly locally too. A bit farther and you could do a day in the Purbecks.

EDIT: Just read that PORC closed years ago so ignore that suggestion 🙂

Penshurst is no more, closed a while ago. Might re open at some point but I would hold your breath.

Ah PORC (Penshurst bike park) is no more always try the Bull track in crowborugh.

dont forget the north downs way, you can do an out and back although it does include some lanes and isnt exactly exciting. i tend to just ride it on the gravel bike.

Covert as already mentioned is ok, i can generally get a couple of hours out of it although its better served on an ebike as you can shuttle the fire roads and get much more runs in.

for simply just practicing skills Perry is the best although the council keep threatening to flatten the jumps so there is every chance you could turn up and the good stuff has gone. pack a shovel though and it wont matter too much as you can build what you like (its all sand).

another choice would be the Warren if you like short runs with a few jumps.

you can get a day out of twisted oaks and avoid the rush hours, its getting better and better although still a bit limited at the moment.

finally if you just want to wreck yourself head to the velo solutions pump track in Gillingham, or if you want to hurt yourself the Source Park if you can borrow a BMX.

Quite like the idea of doing the South Downs Way. I think I'd like to try and ride a section. Then ride back to where I started. Then the next time start where I turned around. That way, once I've done it all, I'd have done it in both directions.

Having never done it I'd probably plan to just ride from the start for about 90 mins or 2 hours the turn round.

Or indeed the SDW in 2 days, staying overnight at the Truleigh Hill youth hostel up from Shoreham?

Don't really want to stay anywhere overnight; be too worried about leaving my bike anywhere.

Bike in hotel room?

I'm sure lots have done it, just for security of course.

The youth hostel at truleigh hill is very remote, with a lockable store room for bikes. Pretty safe there I’d say.

As above there’s some good riding around East Kent. I quite like Covert but it’s quite a small area. What’s there is good though. Kings Wood is also decent but quite a bit of fire road to link bits up. My personal feeling is that the network around Blean is the best local riding.

From Dargate in the west right across to Herne in the east there’s miles of singletrack if you know where to look and local trail builders have done a superb job on adding features. The woods at Dargate off Courtney Road for example have been really developed and it’s quite similar to Covert now with several DH runs from the top of the hill. But the great thing is you can then cross over into Blean for more singletrack and then you can go to Clowes and on to Thornden.

Here’s a 23 miler and you could double that and not ride the same bit of trail and it’s nearly all singletrack. Have a look on strava heat map.

[img] [/img]

I def agree with the suggestion of Blean etc, so many miles of great singletrack to explore. Linking up Thornden, Clowes and Blean gives you a fair few combinations of routes.

Bluebell Hill has lots of great trails, but the best stuff is all spread out and it's become over developed and trail closures have started and I don't know where it will stop. I regularly do 2hr + rides, riding different bits of it.

Monk wood and the surrounding area off the Common Rd is the main area and you can park near the viewing point or the Robin Hood pub.
Westfield wood the other side of the A229 can be ridden to from there and has a few good trails, some built by yours truly. Unfotunately some of these have been permanently blocked by serious tree felling.
Further over there are steep DH trails, you can park in Boxley village or on the Pilgrims way near Boxley Fencing to get to these.

I went to Blean today. Didn't have a clue where I was going, Found a couple of decent bits but it was really wet. I think a bit more investigation needed.

If you are willing to drive the other side of the river there is thorndon (Brentwood), Epping and Danbury to ride but definitely a guide is needed for all