Old Friends in Friston Forest
One of our objectives for this summer is to ride older trails that have been neglected and keep them open. Older trails are often overlooked in favour of newer ones that are: 1) usually closer to a car park and 2) can be ridden faster as they tend to have less natural technical parts. One problem with riding on the newer trails is that the older ones very quickly become overgrown and require navigation through the inevitable nettles and brambles. Undeterred, we headed to Friston Forest with the aim of riding a mix of well used and older trails, the added challenge was to eliminate all fireroad that was not part of a marked trail.
Friston Forest (just west of Eastbourne on the south coast) has a mixture of trails ranging from full on DH to gentle family runs. Stay well clear during the winter or after prolonged rain as the trails turn into serious mud-baths! It is an area that we used to ride very regularly but have not visited for almost 18 months. Today we had an excellent ride, 2.5 hours of twisty wooded singletrack with lots of obstacles to get over and across as well as negociating the nettle and bramble patches. Fantastic. Back at the car we compared nettle rashes and bramble scratches, and concluded that we would return before the onset of winter.
From the visitor centre carpark follow the 'Technical Mtb Route', this is easy to find and is clearly signposted with purple arrows. Ask at the bike hire place if you can't find the begining of it. A couple of highlights of this trail are the singletrack descent down the long off camber rooty section with the wicked climb back to the fire road. (20 yards east along the fireroad it bisects the DH runs, have a go if you fancy it.) The marked drop with the 'Caution Steep Drop' sign is also a blast. Stay on the Technical Route until you reach the dew pond after a twisty singletrack climb through trees. Stand facing north with the dew pond directly in front of you and you will see a trail that heads north skirting the left side of the dew pond. Go down here and where it forks take the left turn to drop onto a fireroad. Peddle along the fire road past the bridleway crossroads. There are many old trails in this area from tricky and technical to more DH orientated. From here you can follow 100% singletrack back to the carpark.
Friston Forest (just west of Eastbourne on the south coast) has a mixture of trails ranging from full on DH to gentle family runs. Stay well clear during the winter or after prolonged rain as the trails turn into serious mud-baths! It is an area that we used to ride very regularly but have not visited for almost 18 months. Today we had an excellent ride, 2.5 hours of twisty wooded singletrack with lots of obstacles to get over and across as well as negociating the nettle and bramble patches. Fantastic. Back at the car we compared nettle rashes and bramble scratches, and concluded that we would return before the onset of winter.
From the visitor centre carpark follow the 'Technical Mtb Route', this is easy to find and is clearly signposted with purple arrows. Ask at the bike hire place if you can't find the begining of it. A couple of highlights of this trail are the singletrack descent down the long off camber rooty section with the wicked climb back to the fire road. (20 yards east along the fireroad it bisects the DH runs, have a go if you fancy it.) The marked drop with the 'Caution Steep Drop' sign is also a blast. Stay on the Technical Route until you reach the dew pond after a twisty singletrack climb through trees. Stand facing north with the dew pond directly in front of you and you will see a trail that heads north skirting the left side of the dew pond. Go down here and where it forks take the left turn to drop onto a fireroad. Peddle along the fire road past the bridleway crossroads. There are many old trails in this area from tricky and technical to more DH orientated. From here you can follow 100% singletrack back to the carpark.
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