Makeover of Ashton Court

Ashton Court has been given a makeover! The old trails were getting worn and for that reason almost technical. We quite enjoyed them but apparently were in a minority.

The first big change to note is that the loop now goes the other way round (clockwise). Apparently this is the same as a the Bristol Bikefest anyway. At least now riders do all seem to ride it the right way so you're not constantly having to give way to each other. Which is good because it does flow a lot better now, it draws you into a sequence of pedal-pump-jump which is very engaging and surrpsingly tiring given that there are no big hills. There's a few bits which are a bit tight and it's hard to maintain a good speed through but not too many. In fact the worst but for this is at the start of the red diversion but this section improves as it goes on. The worst thing about the improvements is that it is noticeably busier, so you are often trying to overtake slower riders or stay ahead of riders behind (too flowy to want to stop). And being a city centre trail you get lots of kids/novices who don't understand that it's polite to pull over (though I am at times guilty of that too and I guess it is designed for kids and novices so I should go and play at a proper trail centre.......).

Leigh Woods has also been more formalised so that will be worth an explore. Fifty Acre wood has not been changed so that remains in the same old style - very different now to Ashton Court.

The cafe remains a bit limited - I went in looking for cake and returned empty handed. I think this is set to change too but i'm not sure when.

Dartmoor

We had purchased this Harveys map of Dartmoor, and, in a day that had been beset wioth tehcnicla and navigational disasters, we decided on a quick blast down one of their extreme/black graded routes, from 737899 into Fingle Bridge (742900). Getting to the top was another navigatiosn challenge we dodn't quite manage right..... The descent itself was pretty mundane. This did prove to be the exception and the other Harvey's trail gradings we tried later in the weekend were about right.

Our next route started from Postbridge and did a loop to the south. Highlights were the singletrack from Dunnerbirdge Pound (747745) to Sherberton (646734) (though it was not all rideable!) the final bit of the descent from Combestone Tor (668719) to Dartmeet (671733) and the descent from Babeny to the East Dart River (663757). The Combestone tor descent has the hardest "feature".

Our final loop from Princeton to the Burrator Reservoir and back was scenic and moorland feeling but not technical, apart from a short bit of singletrack between 567689 and Sheepstor (559680).

Ashton Court

Maybe I had low expectations from a city centre trail, but I really enjoyed Ashton Court, in the centre of Bristol. It's reputed to be heavily eroded, but what this has left is a trail that's challenging to ride. Not "flowy" or "swoopy" by any means, but loads of fun obstacles and windy bits. The most fun bits are next to the quarry and the trail in Five Acre Wood. There is waymarking, but the local riders seem to ignore this (hence you often find people riding the wrong way....) so exploring is probably just as valid. There's a greasy spoon at the golf course start (car park on top of the hill) which is adequate.

South West England

We’ve only spent one weekend round here, which is a shame as it seems obvious that there musty be a good volume of high quality biking.

On Dartmoor we really enjoyed the descent into Lustleigh (SX774816) from (SX751824) even though at the time it was pouring with rain. There were lots of large rocks!

The main ridge of the Quantocks is a scenic ride, though with few technical challenges. Rides here seem to consist of descending from the ridge and reascending, repeatedly. We only had a chance to do a couple of descents, and chats to others suggest we haven’t found the best ones yet, so I’ll leave this open to further comment.