Anyone been over there the last couple of days? Wondering how treacherous the car park was?
It's not the car park that will be the problem. It's all the other roads where people are launching themselves through hedges and ditches round here. Stay at home.
and the riding wont be much fun, I've been riding too/from work the last few days, even B roads it was best to asume an average of 3-4mph, off road was a none starter.
An attempt at the local loop round Sunningdale it is then!
So nobody has tried the trails in Swinley? I fancied a go up there tomorrow
gee posted up yesterday saying that the fireroads were hell and the singletrack was doable but slow.
The built trails should be fine, if a little soggy/ icy; everything else will be atrocious. Personally I'll be playing on the Xbox but imagining it's a bike I'm on, rather than shooting the hell out of 12 year olds in Halo.
I can live with slow. I think my usual loop only has about a mile of fireroad over the whole route so I can live with struggling over that bit or going around.
Perhaps wait until it's started to thin out a bit then. After the last snowfall (and to be fair after a bit of time) it was awesome over there, still covered but compacted down and soooo fast.....bike stayed clean too 😉
Am about to head off there now for a walk, with camera. Shall report back later so if you don't hear from me, send out a search party!
I have been out the last 2 days in the Tunnel Hill area. You have to stick to the well used paths and underused raods. Anything which hasn't seen a few vehicles is simply too deep to cycle on. Even following beind the loggers 4x4's in the forest was very difficult as the wheels kept digging in to the deep snow.
Also the depth of snow was putting so much in the rear cassette that it kept freezing and freewheeling in both directions.
Similar to fettling, I live near Tunnel Hill and not far from Swinley and it was a total non-starter when I attempted a ride yesterday around Porridge Pot Hill.
There's no vehicular access this side of the canal so everything was still full-depth save for a few footprints. Too thick to pedal on the flat, no hope going up hill pushed everything, and all but the steepest downhill sections were less than walking pace. The couple of trails that do have a decent gradient were quite fun and slidey but getting to them and back again was not worth the effort.
Swinley will no doubt have seen a bit more (foot and wheel) traffic but the depth will be the same as here and generally more effort than it's worth. Spend the time building a snow pump track instead.
Sod that then, another turbo session and a pootle around the estate to see if I can finally get the MiniDV camera finally lined up / mounted correctly!
Don't know if it's changed, but the main car park at Swinley was closed anyway on Wednesday. In my 2 wheel drive car I attempted various parking places nearby but anything off the road was just resulting in me getting stuck. Even the car park at the water park was a nightmare.
What's the road like over Tunnel Hill? That's normally my route to work, but I've avoided it over the last few days. I've skidded down round those bends before and it's not nice (it's a dangerous enough road as it is without ice on top). If you can get to the car park by the canal that would be sufficient though.
Think of trying Surrey Hills today. They were great before Christmas in the snow and surprisingly easy to ride in the snow. I guess could be too much now, and I suspect it's impossible to drive there.
CG - The result?
Sorry! Thought you had all seen this.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/conditions-at-swinley-4
The roads from Woking to tunnel hill area were passable thru pirbright past keogh barracks etc but very icy and slippery and that was in a well weighted rear wheel drive pick up! It was getting better each day, but wasn't great yesterday!