Swinley Trails

There was a lot going on in London this weekend when it came to bikes. I decided to avoid it all and get out of the city to go and ride at Swinley forest.

Swinley has recently been developed as a trail centre, taking the trails that have been ridden for years and turning them into a legitimate route. The idea being that this will help users share the forest, preserve the trails for cyclists and also add in some fun.

I would say it’s worked well. The two main loops are graded blue and red and basically have to be ridden together, so you head out on the blue loop and then pick up the red as an extension, before finishing on the blue section again. The trails are well built, with the blue section especially (and perhaps a little too) surfaced. The feel of each part is clear with blue flowing and fast for an experienced rider, with berms and jumps to mix it up, while the red section gets narrower, looser, steeper and more technical, with some excellent bits where the trail winds through trees and roots.

A lot of the climbing is handled on fireroads leaving you free to grin through the singletrack and a chance to rest legs burning form long sections out of the saddle.

All in all a decent trail centre close to London and I’m impressed, even if it is odd riding sections I remember from before it was official. It showed me something new as well and challenged me to push hard. Minor niggles I guess come in the shape of signing that I felt wasn’t as thorough as it could be in places and that weird feeling of riding a trail centre set up where you could be in any one of a number of similar places, and there’s a lack of anything to distinguish the ride from others you’ve done. I guess the key is to see it as a built track and not the real world and then it’s just pure fun.

To add to the day in a weird way, I was overtaken on the way home on the M40 by a Team Sky team Jaguar. Which was strangely exciting.

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