The first trip was helped by an invitation to stay with a university friend who put in the time to contact some locals and find some cool riding. The key route offered some of the best singletrack on the moor, as advised by a Park Ranger. With Exmoor you have to earn the thrills and this one made you pay heavily up front.
Starting from Porlock, a reasonable road start very quickly gave way to the type of brutal climb Exmoor can serve up. Straight up from the sea to the top of the hills. There are no two ways about this, it hurts, as a succession of steep sections smash you up and up through woods to finally emerge drenched in sweat into the biting wind. Here you pull on extra layers and wonder if it can all be really worth it, as you roll onto flatter ground before diving off into the coombs. Soon all ideas of the climb disappear as you plunge and swoop down back towards the sea, on what has to be one of the most fun downhills I’ve ever ridden in the area.
There are some things to explain about the video in this case. Firstly, yes, Steve did fall quite spectacularly down a steep bit, in a move that is entirely out of character. Secondly after the excellent descent back to Porlock neither of us could handle another similar climb so, as you can see we only rode for half the day on Exmoor.
After sandwiches and a pint outside a pub we retreated to Steve’s more local trails on the Quantocks. As local riding goes this gives a whole lot to be jealous of as semi-legitimate trails trace hundreds of options down the side of coombs, and fireroads give the easiest possible way to regain height on the steep-sided ridge of hills. We spent another couple of hours on these trails before the cumulative riding time took its toll and we powered back to the car in a chaingang of two. Before doing this there were some real downhill thrills and beautifully satisfying climbs to log.
That was a full day of riding on the best of the near-South West but the secret I kept from Steve was that I hadn’t quite scratched the itch.
A few weeks later I used the excuse of being nearish in Bristol (more about that soon) to drive through killer traffic back to Exmoor to do a ride that I suspected no one would want to join me on. This would involve more steep hills to strain every part of my body in the blazing heat, long ridge rides and much, much more.
The real highlights for me on this ride at two ends of a scale in terms of riding types. There is the long, loose, gruelling, but superbly satisfying climb up to the top of Dunkery which I love as a challenge. This track climbs steadily and technically for miles to finally reach the highest point on Exmoor and while it hurts every inch of the way, you are out on wide open landscape, grinding upwards constantly, with the price of a trig point and views to reward you. If you can take your eyes off the track and stop swearing for a moment there are wider and wider vistas to enjoy as you climb, and the whole thing never feels anything less than a real achievement. Of course the pay-off is also the clattering descent back off the hill once you’ve paused at the top to appreciate the climb you’ve just managed.
The other end of the scale is represented by a track that will always have a place in my memories of mountain biking. The loop finished on North Hill, above where my Grandparents used to live and where I decidedly cut my mountain biking teeth. More specifically, having dragged every last ounce of energy and power out of myself to get up from the valley floor to Selworthy Beacon I faced the fast and endless-feeling descent across the ridge. To me this sits in my dreams as a way to make riding bikes virtually perfect. Point the bike, click up some gears, suspension open, and you blast full-pelt. The hills are behind you and to your right and the sea sits to the left as you drop across what are really not technical tracks but which take you through regal gold and purple moorland and then into the woods to find your way eventually to the Minehead seafront. Riding from a high point on the moors to the seaside. Somehow that’s perfect for me…
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