Muddy-Hell! A survivours tale

Today a couple of us went for a blast around some of the singletrack in St Leonards & Tilgate forests. Yes we knew it had rained a fair amount during the last week or so but despite our better judgement we assumed that it wouldn't be too muddy. In fact my buddy opted for semi-slick summer tyres.

St Leonards wasn't too bad, there were a couple of patches of mud but I had expected it to be worse. The problems began as we headed across the bridleways joining the two areas of woodland together. The link across the fields had been recently ploughed and were impassable - then we arrived at Tilgate.

From bitter experience I know how muddy Tilgate can get but undeterred we entered via the sneaky twisty path and dropped over the steep roll onto the fireroad. The first omen appeared when we turned sharp left to drop over the ruts to cross the first plank bridge. At this point the mud was viscous and the ruts were about 2 feet deep - then we saw the tell tale tyre marks of motorbikes. Beyond the bridge the trail was a badly rutted swamp so we detoured along what appeared to be a passable route that took off on the right. The further we went the more muddy and rutted it became. At first we were full of bravado and launched into across the ruts and into the pools of standing water with too much care; however the further went the deeper and wider the ruts were becoming. I had a couple of comedy moment but managed not to fall in!

At the first opportunity we headed for higher ground and away from the mud, eventually we made our way out of Tilgate, we had survived. A whiz along the adjoining road and we were back in St Leonard for the final descent where we managed to get lost!

I think we will leave Tilgate for a while - most probably until next summer.