I met Tunde and Andy on 13th September for a ride at the Look Out, just south of Bracknell in Swinley Forest. The area has been reviewed favourably before in the Mountain Biking press, and didn’t disappoint.
Andy had borrowed a Scott Genius from Red Planet Bikes in Swindon (as his Orange 5 still hadn’t turned up), so we played for a bit in the car park before setting out. I managed to get us lost looking for an old haunt (Caesar’s camp), before we headed to Lower Star Post, followed by Surrey Hill. After playing around on a drop in at the top of the hill, we headed into the closest section of trails, finding nice singletrack threading through the valleys.
Near the bottom we met some friendly locals, who suggested more trails (over 1.8km), so we returned to the top (only Andy made it up the steep and loose climb!) before trying another route from the next rise south east of Surrey Hill. This next route again pleasantly threaded through the trees. We attempted the same climb, and again were shown how to complete it by Andy on the Scott Genius.
Andy’s insistance to venture to the 2nd summit from Surrey Hill paid dividends; we met some more riders (with freeride clothing and bikes), and one of them lead us down the left hand route. This route was frankly awesome! Fully bermed switchbacks lead straight from one to the next, with a few tabletops and jumps thrown in for good measure. This lead into “The Labrynth”, another long singletrack section, both with uphill and downhill sections and plenty more bermed corners.
The exit from the Labryth dropped a few feet onto a fireroad – I foolishly attempted to jump this, and caught my back wheel on the lip, resulting in a full forward rotation and head first landing. Fortunately I came away with only grazes and bruises, and the bike didn’t suffer. Still we resolved to climb back up and do both trails again (and I rode the drop the second time!).
Overall a great day, probably around 20 miles in total, plus a couple more in Basingstoke.
