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Has anyone here ridden Thetford Forest, just noticed it's right near a friends house. I was thinking about heading up there when the weather improves.

Anyone know if it's worth riding, what the trails are like and if its downhill or XC ect ect

It's XC and pretty flat. It's pretty gritty too. Some here don't like riding there, some do! Quite a bit of racing goes on there, there's a winter series going on there at the moment. Still, not ridden there myself so can't judge.

From reading there website they say there's 2 red runs and a blue run, dunno what that means skill level wise I have only done Thorndon and Epping for XC.

Just in case i'm not the one that doesn't have a clue about trail gradings. I looked it up

http://imba.org.uk/where-to-ride/trail-grading/

I'm still not much the wiser lol

I don't think the red runs are particularly challenging, they're certainly not like red graded trails at Welsh trail centres! I think there has been some recent trail work (from the recent MSG newsletter). Check out http://www.timbermtb.org/website/

Green = complete novices and family rides.
Blue = few more ups and downs
Red = A good challenge for experience MTB'ers
Black = Usually has some feature you have to commit to and are unavoidable, such as jumps and large drop-offs
This explains it way better than me: http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/search ... g-System-0

Thanks for the info Eccles

I fancy thetford one day its not far from me really....thinking spring time!

Its flat and fast in the dry, in the wet it will kill your bike, your brakes and your drivetrain.
Nothing remotely challenging there, other than on the old black route is continuous speed bumps , which are litterly a pain in the arse.
the "beast" is nothing more than a few hundred meters of slightly DH "humps" and is better described as the"Hamster" than the "beast".

this!

a big old waste of time in my opinion

I'm up for a spin over there at some point and as you're only a mile or so from me let us know if/when you decide to go.

I absolutly love thetford.

ive so far ridden epping thetford and bedgebury.

by far the most fun for me was thetford it is very flat which means you can just eat up the miles without getting rediculously out of breath.

(i have health issues (if my heart goes faster than 180bmp i get electricuted) so when we went to bedgebury i was pushing my bike half the time up the hills.

we go as often as we can (me and friends) so if anyone wants to you can tag along with us.

last time there (sept 2012) we did 30 miles in one morning... (couldnt do it now need to get my fittness back up.


they have 2 red runs now one used to be black. i will discuss each as red and black so you know the difference..

first the red.

its a nice easy flat xc route with a few small descents and ascents runs water off pretty well so even when we went in the rain it was really easy to ride. it has quite a few "bomb holes" which are nice to dive in and out of... it used to have a few wooden sections aswell one used to be called the tightrope. but from what ive heard someone came off of it and ended up in a wheelchair so it was removed

the black (which is now a red)
its a bit shorter than the first route but is harder on the legs and chest .
people get fed up with it because its so undulated your forever going up and down out of little divits which on a hardtail is just really damn annoying. at the end of this route is a section known as the

"beast"

its not all that difficult to be honest my first time out on my bike for 10 years and i tackled it and had no problems.

if you go to bedgebury the red route there is harder than the "beast" which is suposidly a black section still.

i would say its an awesome place to go to get your fittness up you can ride miles and miles without to much agro at all.

we should be heading back up there once the weather is a bit better (were all fair weather riders im afraid)

i have some very amateur video on my youtube account if you want to see it just give me a shout. its absolutly crap on the cheapest camera you can imagine and it was our first time out so our jumps etc were just awful and we were shitting ourselves most of the time...

It sounds like it's worth a day out to get the XC fitness back up, I might wait till its warmer and drier through. I can't afford any more bike bits for a couple of months and my XC drive train isn't in the best condition. Sounds like Thetford would finish it off in the wet.

^^ +1 ^^

yep no probs can car share an that!