[Closed] Swinley tomorrow - anyone want to show me around?

Off visiting relatives otherwise I'd be tempted. Need to ride fat bike in effort to train for gorrick.

Since the old days, the new official trails are sign posted, just follow the numbers. Some you have to look out for a bit.

10am on a Sunday parking... will be fun 😉

Blue badge helps parking and forces electric bike.

Every silver lining has a cloud

Will be there later in the day, 5.30ish.

As above, follow the blue and it takes you to the red. Can't go wrong.

Do your bike a favour, avoid Red 2, it'll be a bog. Turn right after the first bit of red rather than crossing the fire trail. You will pick up red 3 further along the fire trail.

Hi,

Am planning on being there tomorrow, though probably a bit earlier. Am pretty noobish, so probably not much use as a guide - but will definitely keep an eye out for you.

Will be on an orange Whyte 905, not sure about clothes, but wearing a Blue/Black POC helmet, and will have an orange OMM backpack.

Hope to see you around,

Rich

p.s. Thanks for the heads-up jamesoz.

Will be on an orange Whyte 905, not sure about clothes, but wearing a Blue/Black POC helmet

What colour bike orange or white?

I'd advise you to wear clothes, firstly the sand up your crack and secondly a man riding round sporting just a blue/black helmet, please don't go near the park area...kids present
🙂

Ha... Will keep an eye out

FYI quite a bit of tree felling going on so after blue 7 (the downhill bit after the long ish fire road section) there is a diversion in place so take a left instead of right (up the hill). Signs to follow and this will bring you back up past tank traps and back into stickler.

I will be on a green solaris...with white helmet (not due to a medical condition)

Ha! Well, it is meant to be warm tomorrow... Good point about the sand though...

Wca... Think I rode past you... Scott e bike? Green decals? Was in my way back unfortunatly after hammering a quick blue / Crowthorne / red loop so did not have much legs left to join you guys. Hope you had a great ride anyway 🙂

Sounds like you saw me.

I was initially very disappointed with the blue trails near the lookout. They were basically trail of pebbles in clay with such a crown to the trail you had to either stay right on the top centre of the pebbles or ride alongside the trail. Where there were berms they were the the wrong shape, size and position.

I rode back to the Lookout and then headed out along the fireroad that goes under Go Ape and headed off until I saw a few other riders and started following various groupd down what I assume are the red trails. Much better. Still strange surfacing in places but much better flow.

I reckon with a local rider to guide me it would be great. As it was I spent too much time wandering aimlessly or following people down trails dragging my brakes to slow down enough.

More planning needed next time I think

The pebbles can be a bit much in places, don't always seem to follow the natural flow.
You can easily cherry pick the best of the blue & red with "off piste" bits inbetween. Does need someone local to show the way.

It's gotta be time for a stw organised ride maybe ?

1st half of the blue is shit, 2nd half & red ok. I only ever go on my way to Wales as it breaks up the journey, and midweek so it's quieter. Must be a nightmare at the weekends with so many families, etc.

Apparently the off-piste is good, have a couple of GPXs but not gotten around to checking it out yet.

Its only busy early in the day. I'm going in an hour or so and will probably only see half a dozen others there.

Yep so much more to swinley than the yellow brick road. Yesterday did 22 miles hardly touching the official sections. Happy to show you around the decent stuff wca... Pm me next time yiu head over.

The trail surface is weird... All off camber (for drainage) so takes a bit of getting used to.

It's fine at weekends to be honest so long as you are not a strava saussage and happy to hold back when behind slower riders and just chill. It's great to see kids of all ages out and about enjoying the trails. Blue is always fairly busy at weekends as it feeds the red but once you split, it never feels that crowded.

Whilst the car park is jammed at weekends, the trails are not.

obviously, there aren't any trails just the other side of the Old Dean estate (where that massive ariel mast is) around Deepcut, but if there were - although there aren't - then i expect they'd be loads better than Swinley.

But there aren't any, so i don't know why I mentioned it, and as a result I can't offer to show you around them if you ever wanted me to next time you're in this area.

😉

theotherjonv - would you mind if I didn't send you an email to arrange not being shown around as well? 😆

absolutely. I happily won't show you around some trails that don't even exist.

Schroedinger's trail centre?

yep, you can either ride the trails, or know where they are, but not both.

Interesting that people really dislike the blues, I see the first few, leading to the red sections as being the bit you do to "earn your turns" and the blues leading back to the lookout are quite fun and flowing in parts...

TBH I don't mind following the official loop until you get to the trail heads at red 20 and then session some of those for a bit, beasting myself back up either climb with the descents as a reward, till I'm flagging, and then follow the arrows back...

There's better stuff, I remember riding yonks ago with old riding mates who knew the trails, but then I didn't go back for a few years and now when I visit I just want a quick ride, I don't have the time to explore really...

Happy to be guided round some time, should there be an STW forum ride...

Next Sunday? I've got all day there. I'm far from an expert on the offpiste compared to some.

I quite like the very first bit of the blue, the crown on the trail just gives each corner a nice berm if you drop down the inside.

Anytime next Saturday or Sunday eve is cool with me.
Just got back from there....

I probably only have Saturday afternoon free next weekend.

I'd happily tag along with anyone who has the 'Swinley knowledge' who can put up with a trundling biffer.

Alternatively anyone fancying another follow the arrows session I'm happy to do that too.

I've been pretty much every weekend this year (yellow Ibis Mojo or On-One Fatty Trail)

Tend to stick to blue and red as I'm usually with one or both of my boys

If there's any form of STW ride going on I'd be interested - would like to see some of the off-piste stuff

I need to go back and tackle the jump at the start of corkscrew. It's been about 6 months since I have been there

Some peer pressure and advice might solve it!!

I'd be up for a group ride. Could do with a bit of sills advice too! Wobbly moment off one of the new drops on a red.

Rich

The social ride on Thursdays at 7 is great for finding new bits. Usually splits into fast and slower groups.

Saturday would be good, I know some nice loops but certainly no expert.

When I lived in the area, there definitely weren't any good trails at Tunnel Hill, so don't get anyone to show you those either

I need to go back and tackle the jump at the start of corkscrew. It's been about 6 months since I have been there

Some peer pressure and advice might solve it!!

No jump there ! If you're jumping, you're better than me 😉

There's a roll-in drop though 🙂 Which funnily enough i did on Saturday. My teaching/advice would likely be "Hell, i don't know, i'm just happy to have survived it myself"

Interesting that people really dislike the blues, I see the first few, leading to the red sections as being the bit you do to "earn your turns" and the blues leading back to the lookout are quite fun and flowing in parts...

I'm all for earning my turns. Not bothered in doing it by riding dross though.

There's enough off piste for a half decent ride there still on a hardtail. But 5 years on, it could do with a fairly extensive makeover on the main loop.

Weeksy we have discussed it before. Can you roll that?? I always assumed you need to take off the lip

I can't see how you can launch it mate, it's almost vertical and then into flat. You launch that and you're hitting a 4' drop to flat.... That can't be a good thing ? I don't know what my actual speed was, maybe 4-5mph over it, so not quite a standstill, but certainly not taking off !
TheotherJonV did it before me last time i hooked up with him over there, it was mostly because he rolled it on a HT that i just followed him LOL. It does indeed look quite daunting when you walk up to it.

The flat landing is the bit that has spooked me, exactly

I need to roll it then. Puzzled why others have no problems and I wimp on it every time!!

Do you jump the bigger ones nearby??

Do you jump the bigger ones nearby??

You mean the log type drop in which is just behind you from there ? Loops into a little jump at the bottom ?

I don't actually ride that one at all... It has no appeal to me and just screams of potential disaster. I have ridden it in the past, both before and after the put the log at the top/entry point, but i went there on Sat and looked and said "Nah, don't fancy it"

Corkscrew drop entrance would be just a large drop with no transition, landing to flat, so not that nice to send it off there.

I roll it every time.

I feel like some sort of riding god (I'm not)

If you rolled it at miniscule speed, it is possible to catch a chainring (you can see the scrapes on the root) but even then it depends whether you have a high BB, if your FS is compressed, how big a chainring, etc.

Anything vaguely momentum / bit of a push off the lip and the chainring clears easily, front wheel drops onto the downslope and you ride away while your riding buddies admire your orsumz.

Never tried rolling it, purely from looking at the chain ring marks. I also treat it as a drop off - push off over the lip. How far down the slope I land or where it starts to flatten out just depends on the speed I take. Always have a quick look first just to remind myself of the transition angle, not being a big sender myself. With a nice entrance and exit its easier than some other Swinley drop offs.

As for the cobbles I don't mind them too much. Not as slippery as Cannock and they just encourage you to pick your line a bit better. If anything its the jarring on stiffer hardtails which takes some getting used to.

What Jon says. Just enough momentum to clear the lip

The chain scrapes had made me nervous of rolling to - hence to date I have always taken the chicken line to the right - my excuse is I have only ever ridden their alone and not much passing traffic is i mess it and myself up!!!

As others said, it's a much easier roll than drop, and probably quicker.

I've seen people drop into the transition and drop it to flat and the margin for failure into the transition is pretty tight, you don't want the front wheel to be too high or it's got a long way to fall and pick up speed, and you don't want to get any air with the back wheel if you can help it or you'll miss the transition. Basically as you would roll it but with a bit more speed so the front wheel gets a split second off the ground.

I find the section on the blue (not sure what the name is) that snakes it's way through a flat section of woodland, back and forth, back and forth, to be very dull.

I've only been to swinley about 3 times and each time I found it boring. Probably because I'm mincing and you need to do it at pace to enjoy it. That being said, it's good spot if you're local to it and the rest of it is good considering what the area is surrounded by (i.e. it's not exactly big hills round there)

I find the section on the blue (not sure what the name is) that snakes it's way through a flat section of woodland, back and forth, back and forth, to be very dull.

That is 100% my favourite trail !

I find the section on the blue (not sure what the name is) that snakes it's way through a flat section of woodland, back and forth, back and forth, to be very dull.

Stickler, it's very marmite.

Probably because I'm mincing and you need to do it at pace to enjoy it.

Otherwise, turn right on the muddy track at the start and it brings you out at the next blue section (or carry on the same track and re-join the red but it misses the first few sections).

. Probably because I'm mincing and you need to do it at pace to enjoy it.

No, its the most uninspiring place to ride in the south east. Its 25 mins away from me & I really dont understand the appeal.

I think people miss the point of Stickler a bit (and I don't mean the story of why it came to be so sinuous and how it was built, have done that before and didn't like some of the responses)

It's not a Welsh trail centre..... there isn't the altitude to be able to do long fireroad climbs followed by masses of downhill (although I'll defend that Swinley isn't flat....there are lots and lots of sharp climbs, often up different sides of practically the same hill, and if you don't believe me, singlespeed it)

Stickler kind of does both.... if you hit it at speed it gives you the workout of a climb but still with some berms, trail features (!) etc. Like most jack of all trades, it isn't as good as a proper climb, or as good as a proper descent but as a bit of both and a means of getting from A to B (via C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,etc.) while adding some length to the trail, it's not THAT bad.

I'd never really thought of it as a pseudo climb, but yes that's exactly what it is! That almost tempts me to do laps ot it

Well I certainly notice the short sharp fireroad climb to the top of the red section that goes back down the hill!

Sounds like I need to do it at pace, I can see how it might be good if someone is chasing you or you're chasing someone else. At pootling pace it's boring.

The red section is good fun though, although some of it is so narrow that I'm concentrating hard on not clipping my bars!

I'd never really thought of it as a pseudo climb, but yes that's exactly what it is! That almost tempts me to do laps ot it

I'm not a big fan, but I did a skills course and it's a very good trail for working on positioning / cornering / trail scanning etc etc.

Still boring though 😛

Well I certainly notice the short sharp fireroad climb to the top of the red section that goes back down the hill!

Presume you mean the climb upto deerstalker?

If you hate that one, try the one up the other side of the hill. I.e. do deerstalker/labrynth, and where it drops back onto the fireroad and turns left, go right (and right again etc) untill you get back to the top. It used to be referred to as 'the wall' for good reason!

The trail center definately does a good job of avoiding hills though, or at least taking easy routes up them so I'd not complain too much.

I rekon he means the one to top of Red25.

it's all bloody climbs without gears, and more than that they're just the right gradient so you can't spin up them and then add in the fact that on even the less steep sections there's always a bend in exactly the wrong place so you can't tear into it with momentum or the pebbles of doom will have you... so it's round the corner, then stand for 15 yards of low cadence big muscle effort, and rinse and repeat.

Seagull second section, perfect example.... those 3 switchbacks are a twiddle on gears, as it the bit after the new features. No gears, stand and grunt. Same with the section that meanders up to the fireroad that Tank Traps starts from, or the first bit of Tank Traps, or the hill after blue 7, or.....

I like to compare Swinley to Cannock - on the face of it similar, but actually quite different trail centres

Swinley as an xc blast I think is pretty good - flows well, and despite the lack of overall climbing gives a real work out if i'm pushing myself. Cannock does not flow as well for me, but obviously has longer and in my eyes better downhill sections. It's also a lot tighter through the trees and technically more difficult - I think many who describe Cannock as easy, don't do the black options.

Considering where it is in the country it's a bloody good start. It's changed alot over the years and hopefully will continue to do so.
There are a few sections which leave me wondering why it's as it is but as some have said, the faster you go the better it gets.

Swinley as an xc blast I think is pretty good - flows well, and despite the lack of overall climbing gives a real work out if i'm pushing myself. Cannock does not flow as well for me, but obviously has longer and in my eyes better downhill sections. It's also a lot tighter through the trees and technically more difficult - I think many who describe Cannock as easy, don't do the black options.

True, the Blacks at Cannock are properly black, especially on an XC hardtail. But then equally the whole Dog/Monkey loop is much less technical than Swinley's blue (if you count jumps as technical).

My only gripes with Swinley are:
1) Re-opening the old seagull was a mistake, it really hasn't coped with the traffic has it, and given it's nature I don't think it's possible to armour it (too tight in the trees).
2) The new jumps/drops on Seagull, yes more red features are very welcome, but that would have worked so much better with just one jump/drop at the bottom to let you pick up speed easily for it rather than having to sprint off the top of the climb. The effort of building them could have been spread out over more trail(s), even the section before it on the swoop down to the road, or the bit in the berms a few hundred meters before could have had the drops and added a bit of interest.

Stickler, it's very marmite.

Yeah, like I said before it's part of the "Earn your Turns" thing, I had a look last night at the [I]'Stickler long'[/I] segment on Strava my best time for it is a good two and a half minutes slower than the KOM time, almost 4000 places back, I've plenty of room for improvement, but that's still actually inside the top 25%. So a lot of people must have ridden it once and then sacked it off for being boring...

Yes it's a challenge to maintain speed and flow and choose your lines, and it fatigues you, but I kind of like that about it TBH, while it's not total unmitigated downhill fun it does force you to work on some rather key things for MTBing including fitness...

You can't just live on ice cream and gummy bears, sooner or later you have to eat your greens...

My best time for Stickler is 3 mins behind the KOM 🙁

Think it's technique (lack of) as much as fitness

Tinas totally agree about the new bits on red before newt. Very badly thought out.... Much better to have one jump/step further down so you can get speed up and then hit the roller at the bottom. The bottom drop is far too close to the roller.

I always run the trail parallel (not the fire road) to old seagull.... It's just a bog fest at the moment.

Here is my one little tip for today.... When you see the start of stickler, take a left (10 o'clock as you face the signpost) and run that trail all the way down, over the fireroad and keep going. See what you find.

I used a gpx file I found online: "Swinley's best bits", when I took dezbjr up there a few weeks back and it was superb - corkscrew, labyrinth, "old" stickler (?), couldn't have asked for a better route to show the kid round. Last time we tried a slightly longer one "Red-Blue-Red" and it wasn't nearly as good. Sounds like it had new stickler. Oh and a red that was very muddy, through the trees - wasn't actually on the route, but looked inviting and was not great 🙂

Anyway is anyone actually up for a South East - STW Swinley group ride this coming Saturday (30/09/17), Say meet up ~13:00hrs by the start of Blue 1?

Just treat it as a [i]"Social"[/i] ride, assume a slower paced trundle with lots of stopping to regroup and bypassing stickler if that's the majority preference?

Those in the know might choose to attend and show us some off piste perhaps?

Anyone?

Yeah, like I said before it's part of the "Earn your Turns" thing, I had a look last night at the 'Stickler long' segment on Strava my best time for it is a good two and a half minutes slower than the KOM time, almost 4000 places back, I've plenty of room for improvement, but that's still actually inside the top 25%. So a lot of people must have ridden it once and then sacked it off for being boring...

Yes it's a challenge to maintain speed and flow and choose your lines, and it fatigues you, but I kind of like that about it TBH, while it's not total unmitigated downhill fun it does force you to work on some rather key things for MTBing including fitness...

You can't just live on ice cream and gummy bears, sooner or later you have to eat your greens...

I'm sat comfortably in the top 75 on that segment & i'm not exactly 'whippet' levels of fitness.

I will still happily turn left at the entrance and avoid the whole lot & ride off piste.

It's all kinds of dull.

Fair play, I need the workout still 😳

Yep, if you don't fancy it, you can save yourself 7-10 mins going round in circles on Stickler and turn left for a minute then pick the fire road up at the top of red 29, turn right and rejoin blue or start the red. Or continue down and pick the red 29 up half way. I think.

Wow, stickler long I'm 2min 09 off the kom. And that's 2336 out of 17,817

20sec quicker than me weeksy 😆

Being a pedant, the Stickler Long segment isn't actually what you ride these days as it's got the old entrance off the fire road from when you could ride it both ways, "blue route section 10 long" is the one that includes the straight ish bit parallel to the fire road.

1'49 off the KOM on the real one, 1'41 on the old one. And yes, I also like marmite,and the full labyrinth.

And for tinas that hill was k2, the wall was the climb if you stayed on the fire road instead of taking r15

Don't get me started on Stickler!

Well, alright then 😈 ... as said it needs speed really, especially to make the berms work (berms are for hills to catch the corners and flow through, not flat out pedalling 😛 ). Generally despise it, mainly as it's tediously boring, cobbles and berms on flat. Though it does have the rock garden of Swinley 😉 and the tree bridge.

As I understand it though, it was a BoB / Gorrick creation, likely for races back in the day and those types love endless twisty pedalling round stuff like that (reminds me of Area 51 over TH way they do races on. Though at least no cobbles and has some up and down).

Anyway, hook left at start of Stickler though, much nicer route. The old Whole Nine Yards, follow up to the man hole.

@cookeaa - can't do this weekend. Maybe the one after, (7th)?

I can't do the 7th, and then I'm probably going to be pulling my MTB apart in about mid-late October...

cookeaa

50/50 chance of me being there Sat afternoon. Will post here nearer the time if there's much take-up.

Looks like I'm the slowest 'declared' time on Stickler 🙁 . I'm either going to improve my time or crash next time I'm on it

Saturday afternoon should be ok.
I'm all marmite about the stickler, nice on the single speed rigid if you leggit.

Sat afternoon could be a go-er for me 😀

Room for a fat slow biffer?

Being a pedant, the Stickler Long

Also to do that and be

Hob Nob
comfortably in the top 75 on that segment & i'm not exactly 'whippet' levels of fitness.

Means that you'd only be about 15-20s slower over a 6min segment than some semi sponsored XC racing types that train round Swinley and are proper quick.... That's some going... I hope you're not going to claim you weren't trying 😆

OK then 30/09/2017 @ 13:00 hours I shall be by the start to Blue 1, @13:10 we set off...

Room for a fat slow biffer?

Absolutely. You won't be the only biffer.

1pm should be ok for me and the lad.

I may have to try and change my Sat plans then, i'm at a footy Cubs tournament in the morning, but not sure what time it finishes, if i can get there then i will and do my other stuff Sunday instead.

Means that you'd only be about 15-20s slower over a 6min segment than some semi sponsored XC racing types that train round Swinley and are proper quick.... That's some going... I hope you're not going to claim you weren't trying

On a DH bike, in full pyjamas with a full face on, such is the Swinley way. Joking of course. Can't remember what I was riding, probably a 29HT.

No, I turned myself inside out to do that - it hurt.

It's bloody impressive.

I can't go round there any/much quicker than i do, but very little is down to pure fitness, i simply can't make my bike quicker in the corners, i could probably gain a few bits really pushing it on the other bits, but i just can't corner quicker than i can corner !