The Twrch trail at Cwmcarn is well known. We’re not riding that though. We’re going to go on an alternative xc route with some technical options, lead by local ride John Purchase. We’ll also be joined by local club Halfway Up MTB.
John is promising to cover 3 peaks, Machen, Sirhowy and Cwmcarn.This is not for the unfit!
We’re meeting at The Crown pub in Blackwood.
The MBSwindon club annual general meeting and review. It’s being held a the Sun Inn near Coate Water in Swindon.
There’s an optional chicken curry with rice/chips deal for £6. We’ll be eating once the AGM is finished. To book food then please contact chris @ mbswindon co uk.
In 2011 the meeting took just under 45 minutes and then we drank beer and stuffed our faces with curry.
There will be a quick review of the year, a look at our future plans, election of officers and answering of any questions members might have. Questions and feedback can be sent in advance via email to info @ mbswindon co uk.
All of the positions on the committee are open to election:
If you interested in standing for any of the above positions then email phil @ mbswindon co uk.
We made massive progress at the recent build days (trail patching Sat and Sun plus some drainage work 2 3).
We want to meet up for a few hours and shift some material that’s ready to go in the triangle area…right where it says “stockpile” in the photo below. (This session is in place of the postponed Mudtrek trail build weekend).
We’ll be meeting in the car park at 11am. Turn up any time you like – we’ll be in the triangle (bottom right of map below).
See the complete build diary. Future events are on the events calendar.
First set of photos from the summer trip to the French Alps. We stayed with Ski and Summer Morzine who offer a club discount. Videos.
We’re going back in 2013 – keep an eye on Facebook for more info. 2011 photos.
The photos show some riding near Les Gets including a tour of the mountain, the Passportes and then the Col Du Cous trip.
Tour of the mountain
Passportes
Col de Cous
We’d made a start on draining a large puddle on the OCD (obsessive compulsive drainage) session a week earlier.
This was a 2 hour digging session on my own where I drained the remaining water out of the last remaining puddle. I started at 4pm and it was dark by 5pm so I used my Exposure mountain bike light to illuminate the digging area.
I also scraped the mud off the trail surface. The limestone layer was still rock hard underneath so we expect this area to fully recover.
This area only flooded after several weeks of rain so we don’t expect this to be a serious problem.
Dec 2011:
Dec 2012:
See the complete build diary. Future events are on the events calendar.
An evening/night ride at The Croft Trail. All welcome of any ability level – no one gets left behind on our group rides.
Novice Friendly group starts a few minutes after the main group.
This is a great chance to be given a guided tour of the trails if you’ve never been before and a chance to see the improvements if you have.
Depending on the season then you might need lights. Contact us if you would like to borrow some lights.
Winter (Nov – March)
Proper off-road lights will be necessary, speak to us if you want some advice on how to get into night riding without spending hundreds! We even have some lights available for loan which require booking in advance, just drop us a line to arrange.
Spring (March – May)/ Autumn (September – October)
It will be light enough to ride the first lap or two without lights.
After that proper off-road lights will be necessary, speak to us if you want some advice on how to get into night riding without spending hundreds! We even have some lights available for loan which require booking in advance, just drop us a line to arrange.
Summer (June – August)
It will be light enough to ride without lights.
We meet in the car park for 19:30, ready to leave at 19:35ish.
We go to the Check Inn at Wroughton after the ride too.
The SPAM winter challenge is a mountain bike enduro that’s held on MOD land near Erlestoke (google map). There’s a choice of 25,35 and 60km routes.
According to SPAM the route isn’t overly technical and you can take it as fast or as slowly as you like.
See the SPAM Winter Challenge website for more information.
This was a bonus build session on the Saturday after Christmas.
When I arrived at the special festive late start time of 11am then I found Phil Mayger, Phil Allum, Jez, Gary Palmer and Shaun Carolin standing in the rain raring to go.
After the heavy rain then we found plenty of OCD (obsessive compulsive drainage) work. This consisted of digging channels to drain puddles.
One group planted rocks on the second corner of the trail to stop corner cutting. Whilst we were at it we decided to dig out the old start and fill that back in with mud (the new start was built in June 2009, resurfaced in Feb 2010 and the old entrance was closed off in Dec 2012). We’d resurfaced the follow on section in Feb 2012. (We’d done similar rock placement in Sept 2010).
Another group dug out the berm at the bottom of the steps on mway1 and planted a drainage pipe. We’d already done this job in March 2011! The steps were build in July 2010.
We were joined by Sarah Bailey, Jemma Oakes, Andy Matthews and Chris Hopkinson.
Another puddle area was fixed at the bottom of the descent on mway1. Whilst we were there we cleared some mud from the section. This had been built in July 2010 plus we’d done some other work in March 2012.
With that all in the bag then we moved onto the big pond. A whole section of trail had disappeared under several inches of water along with the surrounding land. This area had first been dug out in 2008 and finally surfaced in Dec 2011. A drainage ditch was to start the process of draining the area. Hopes weren’t high because the whole area was flooded (we dug a bigger ditch in Jan 2013).
Dec 2011:
Dec 2012:
Finally the triangle exit area was drained and a bit of trail near the end of the triangle was cleared of gunk. The triangle exit was dug out in May 2010, Aug 2010 and May 2011 and surfaced in Feb 2012 and a bit more added in Sept 2012.
Big thanks to all those who came out in the rain and helped keep the trail up together.
See the complete build diary. Future events are on the events calendar.
We made massive progress at the December build weekend (Saturday).
We want to meet up for a few hours and shift a load of material to fix a section of trail that’s sunk. We’ve got rocks and chippings nearby so the job should only take a few hours.
We’ll be meeting in the car park at 10:30am. Turn up any time you like – we’ll be in the triangle (bottom right of map below).
An evening/night ride at Croft Trails. All welcome of any ability level – no one gets left behind on our group rides.
Novice Friendly group starts a few minutes after the main group.
This is a great chance to be given a guided tour of the trails if you’ve never been before and a chance to see the improvements if you have.
You’ll need lights for all laps. We do have some loan units, so contact us if interested.
We meet in the car park for 19:30, ready to leave at 19:35ish.
We’ll be going to the Check Inn at Wroughton after the ride too.