Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 43 total)
  • The stickler at Swinley
  • gee
    Free Member

    Is closed until 13 March – so please keep clear. Other trails have been relaid and are in need of bedding in – there are signs up to warn you not to rode them in wet conditions.

    GB

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Every man and dog seems to be ignoring the signs/tape it would seem 🙄

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    Yep. I’m so glad I gave up a day’s holiday to help so that I and others can benefit, only to have idiots go and treat it with contempt.

    Thanks for that…..

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    Well, the notices have spelled out why closure is necessary so hopefully that will help.

    Are there any notices around the Visitor Centre/outdoor Cafe area? Perhaps if folk knew beforehand, they would seek out other trails?

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    Don’t make excuses for them. The sort of person prepared to take down / climb over the tape and ignore the signs, it wouldn’t matter if I wrote to them all individually asking them not to, they just would. It’s nothing to do with publicising it, signing it or explaining it, it’s a few people who are too self centred to see beyond what they want.

    dandelionandmurdoch
    Free Member

    Anyone fancy joining me this Friday night for a go on my new ‘crosser? Should be just the ticket for Swinley, especially The Stickler.

    Anyone…?

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    I’m not making excuses for anybody. Just suggesting that if they knew before they got there, they would ride elsewhere rather than thinking ‘one bike won’t matter’ at the entrance.

    It must be very frustrating for you, we can all appreciate that.

    Was it not possible for just one trail to be worked on, rather than several?

    scu98rkr
    Free Member

    Is closed until 13 March – so please keep clear. Other trails have been relaid and are in need of bedding in – there are signs up to warn you not to rode them in wet conditions.

    what other trails, how wet

    should i bother taking some newbies this weekend

    we need more information I live locally and would not ride the trails if I was riding on my own as i know where alot of other trails are but I could see if you had come a long way you may choose to ignore this. information needs to be on the gorrick swinley website

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    Tank Traps and Seagull should not be ridden if it’s raining or if the ground is damp.

    dandelionandmurdoch
    Free Member

    if you had come a long way you may choose to ignore this

    …then you would be a prize dickhead who doesn’t deserve to be allowed to ride anywhere. (NB. This is not a dig at you, scu98rkr! 🙂 )

    Tank Traps and Seagull should not be ridden if it’s raining or if the ground is damp.

    So that’s, like, always then, right…? 😉

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    dandelion – how did your, er, evening’s entertainment go? You need to update your thread! 😉

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    Was it not possible for just one trail to be worked on, rather than several?

    You can’t schedule it when you’d like to as you have to fit in with other stuff like nesting bird seasons, hence why work is done in winter when clearly summer would be better. It takes a lot of planning, volunteer labour booking days off work, rental of plant and equipment, etc. So when a week is chosen you really then have to follow through on the plan as best you can and maximise the use of the equipment in that time, even if the immediate result is not exactly as you’d hoped. That’s life…..

    scu98rkr
    Free Member

    ok i was meant to be taking a group Saturday morning. it is meant to rain friday night therefore i will try to convince them that sunday is a better day.

    my usual route is from the look out clockwise 9 yards, stickler, tank traps, play on jumps climb to resviour round the back over the humps. Along seagull and the do some trails in crowthorne including corkscrew then back.

    obviously u can stick on the 9 yards to miss stickler but if I want to get over to crowthorne from lower star point are there any other trails apart from seagull.

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    theotherjonv – yes, I appreciate what you are saying. Thanks for explaining.

    scu98rkr – you can use the little newish singletrack that runs parallel to the fire road between the two star posts. Head for Pip’s Seat and take the singletrack that runs behind it. You will need to bear right along most of it.

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    There’s a singletrack trail to the right of the fireroad that joins LSP to USP. From there go up Ladies Mile a couple of hundred yards and then left onto the ST that eventually leads you out near to Pip’s seat.

    [edit – beaten to the punch…..]

    scu98rkr
    Free Member

    ah cool cheers guys

    catfood
    Free Member

    You could always nip up the back and do the Labarynth and the like, that way your group will still see some of the more fun trails in the woods.
    I sometimes take the route CG suggests between the two star posts toward Pips seat or turn along the Devils Highway instead of Ladies mile and right before the gate for a bit of variety, that way you can nip right into the woods and do Wizards Sleeve or whatever its called, although tis prolly a bit boggy at the mo.

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    wizard’s sleeve – never heard that before but know where you mean. Might be a bit tricky for a group of newbies in the wet over some of the rooty sections.

    You could go all the way along the Devil’s HW to where the Gorrick start finish is and then turn right up the little rooty climb and along to Pip’s seat there; theres a nice little loop of ST into the right just after the top of the rooty climb.

    General comment, and perhaps risking a flaming here but even if the 3 maintenance trails were out of action, you could still do a decent loop of mainly st without touching them. I’m always a bit surprised when people visit an area only to ride the same loop over and over. Go explore, there’s tonnes more and you might find a hidden gem.

    [For balance; Swinley is becoming like a trail centre in that regard even though it clearly isn’t. And in this case I do understand that scu98rkr is bringing a group of newbies and doesn’t want to spend half the ride exploring]

    philconsequence
    Free Member

    you could still do a decent loop of mainly st without touching them. I’m always a bit surprised when people visit an area only to ride the same loop over and over. Go explore, there’s tonnes more and you might find a hidden gem

    did just that on sunday 😀 rode singletrack the whole ride (apart from crossing over a fireroad or two to jump in to the next bit of ST) and didnt touch a single bit we had ridden before 😀

    no idea of what the various bits were called apart from the corkscrew which in the wet and mud was surprisingly fun… not sure if its always that rooty or if recent rain has washed stuff from around the roots making it more techy?

    either way i can definitely say from the point of view of someone who usually ends up doing a pretty similar route around swinley that avoiding the seagul/stickler and tanktraps for a few rides to go turn off into any random bits of ST you find is great fun and you end up linking more and more bits of ST together than a normal loop :mrgreen:

    i’ll say it again, thanks to everyone who put the effort into trail maintenance as once they’re properly open again i’m sure they’ll become part of the rides again 🙂

    infidel
    Free Member

    Apologies if this is a stupid question but is there a map of the trails with their names on anywhere? I ride Swinley intermittently when we visit the inlaws who live nearby and invariable get lost/make it up. Ended up by a lake the other day..!

    catfood
    Free Member

    wizard’s sleeve – never heard that before but know where you mean. Might be a bit tricky for a group of newbies in the wet over some of the rooty sections.

    Yep no idea what its called really Mordor or something to do with a witch, I usually refer to it as tricky woods, as I find it very tricky and youre in the woods, especially hard when wet and approached from the Pips seat direction on the ss, a mate of mine point blank refuses to ride it.

    There was a link to a map posted up on another thread a few days ago, it only lists the main trails tho and you can easily do a couple of hours round Swinley without touching a single one of them but its good for getting a feel for the place and pointing you in the right direction.

    infidel
    Free Member

    map found it – thanks!

    scu98rkr
    Free Member

    Yeah Mordor in my book one of them trails which gets considerably harder in the wet as mentioned.

    Bikingcatastrophe
    Free Member

    So which trails are closed? Is it just Seagull, Stickler and Tank Traps? Riding there with some newbies tomorrow and be useful to know which ones are closed.

    Cheers

    scu98rkr
    Free Member

    From what I can tell Stickler is closed.

    And seagull/tank traps is closed when wet/damp which is will be tomorrow. Im trying to rearrange my group for sunday.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Stickler is closed until March.
    Seagull/Tanktraps have signs up requesting that riders do not use during/after rain.

    The affected part of Seagull isn’t very long and there’s an easy fireroad option which bypasses it.

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    I think perhaps in view of the overnight rain tonight and rain tomorrow, it would be a good idea to avoid on Sunday? Gorrick/Bob clarification appreciated.

    philconsequence
    Free Member

    is it just the first section of the seagull which has had work on it? (the first 3rd by the star-post) or is it all 3 sections?

    Bikingcatastrophe
    Free Member

    Thanks for the updates fellas.

    thepurist
    Full Member

    FWIW I went out yesterday PM to see what had been done on the trails – I figured it had been dry for a couple of days so might be worth a punt. I poked my nose onto the relaid section at the start of Seagull and that confirmed that the new stuff is holding a lot of water at the moment and has the consistency of blancmange, so i decided it wasn’t worth exploring further & did a bit of fire-road tootling.

    Looks like it’ll take a week or more of dry weather before it’s worth thinking about riding those trails again – certainly wouldn’t bother this weekend.

    The wiggly wood/mordor/satan’s grotto/wizards sleeve was as slippy & rooty as you’d expect, but it seems that folk that ride it are actually sticking to one main line rather than there being loads of rat runs going round every puddle & straightlining every corner.

    scu98rkr
    Free Member

    Just to say to the trail builders I took my little group to Swinley on Sunday and DID NOT go on the closed trails. Cheers for the efforts

    Tiger6791
    Full Member

    Swinley is a funny one though. Now if people are riding closed trails they are tossers. I am not defending them.

    But….

    Swinley doesn’t really have any ‘official trails’ yes it has sections that are built and maintained but they sit along side trails that have been made just by use. No ‘official’ maps exist, there is no website. Some bits have several names depending on who you speak to.

    Maybe it would be easier to send people down other tracks if tracks were way marked and single direction?

    It must be one of the busiest ‘Trail Centres’ in the UK and it’s not even a ‘Trail Centre’

    It’s just an odd one.

    * I rather like it though 🙂

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Tigers comment +1

    I was there on Sunday afternoon too, didnt ride any of the maintainded bits and still put together a 13mile loop with an accpetable lack of fire road.

    If there was a sign saying “We’d like you to avoid this trail for a month or so, here’s a diversion via some new singletrack” people might follow it. Looking at the Gorrick course form a few weeks back they seem to be able to cut a fair few miles of track in a day, and left to mud there asre some pretty quick berms forming as the trail errodes and gets pushed to the outside. If they dug an alternative to the seagull maybe it would get left alone for a few weeks, and wouldn’t see the same heavy use anyway so would require less maintenance?

    Swinleys problem is it probably sees as many riders as big trail centers, yet only reaches single figures in terms of miles of armoured trails, even the whole 9 yards and watsons wander are 90% mud/earth, if there’s not the money to armour them, maybe they need permision to cut alternatives like the gorrick race course and let them evolve naturaly. Or even better, bite the bullet, produce a map, stick in some sign posts and show people the less used trails so that they all get an equal share of the errosion.

    Tiger6791
    Full Member

    watsons wander

    I have renamed this BTW

    “Watson’s (keeps getting) Wider”

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    lol, true, but its Ok in the woods, just where it opens out and people take different lines.

    catfood
    Free Member

    I quite like the lack of maps at Swinley, I think part of the fun is exploring and linking bits together. Admittedly it can be a bit frustrating on just a few visits as the woods look pretty much the same wherever you are and some of the named trails can be rather elusive.
    The linked map further up is good tho, just type in Swinley Forest in the search box and up it pops and most of the trails are marked on it with names and everything.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    True, for locals the no maps philosophy works and works well. And it stops it becomeing an attraction like say GT and attracting people from a really wide area. But the inbetweeny people, who come maybe once a month, and ride the same easy to navigate trails, thats what (IMO) leads to the hammering they get.

    catfood
    Free Member

    Agreed, I quite often go there and just kick around the Crowthorne woods area and hardly see a soul.

    sm
    Free Member

    Went to swinley this morning, took my son and his mate who dosent really cycle much. Stayed mainly on fire roads but had a couple of tries of single track, which was wet! I did notice a section that had work done and a sign asking not to use so we didn’t BUT the amount of tyre tracks going into it showed the signs were being ignored. The section was over near crowthorne woods and normally has some good berms in a down hill section.

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    That’s a shame hearing that after all the hard work that’s been put into it.

    We have had quite a bit of rain in the last couple of weeks. Those frosty trails are a distant memory!

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 43 total)

The topic ‘The stickler at Swinley’ is closed to new replies.