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I thought id give you a newbie report on a trip to Bedgebury! myself and a friend known as boots decided that we would try our hand at something harder than thetford this weekend as we had some time off so into the car we got and went off to bedgebury!

let me set the scene! its 6.30 on sunday morning and im walking the dog in a torrential downpour of rain! thinking i dont know if im gonna carry on cycling if the weather stays like this! (id only been out twice before both times to thetford) but i slogged on dried the dog and got the car loaded up with 2 bikes an army of tool/food and clothes!

off we went for an hours drive (hour and 10 minutes after we got lost due to some stupid jubilee parade closing a local village we needed to drive through)

arriving at bedgebury forest i thought hey this looks pretty good doesnt seem to be too many hills! so we ready up buy a map and set off on the single track red route there! my god i almost died after the first 10 minutes it was about 400 meters of pure uphill work and my fittness levels are shite so to speak!

so after a few stops up the hill we make it woohoo! down the decent we go! reaching the bottom and finding the start of the single track! wow we head into the first section and are absolutely blown away it was amazing were riding through loads of fast rolling twists and turns, tiny little jumps and just all road awesomeness for us newbies!

then it hits us again! uphill slogs we start trying to get up one and fail miserably i fall off of my bike half way up it and remember its raining i slide ass first down a clay hill covering my self in wet clay which just clogged in everywhere! i think it even got up my shorts!

after getting up letting 3 people past us who have caught up by now and laughing for the next 10 minutes we man up walk up the hill and carry on riding! we then end up finding loads and loads of loose substrate that we have to ride through almost losing it and then we find some mighty big down hill sections (which are probably tiny to all of you guys) at this point im bricking myself thinking shiiiit! im so blatantly gonna crash out on this and break something!

well i go for it and its the most exhilarating thing i have ever done! i got like 2 foot of air off of one of the jumps and was amazing that i stayed up! boots however went ass over tit and ended up with his nuts wedged against the handle bar stem! (YES MY TURN TO LAUGH)

so it goes on and on uphill followed by a downhill and we were loving it but hating it at the same time! the final killer for me was a section which was aptly named cardiac! (aptly named due to the fact that i myself have a heart condition) turns out to be the biggest uphill section of the day! we didnt even attempt it and felt very very tiny when we had to get out of the way for a family with 2 kids no older than 10 making it past up and not even breaking a sweat going up it! #

eventually we make it to the end of the single track and to be honest felt so relieved that it was over! we had some mighty highs but we also had some hellish lows!

we got dry and packed away sat in the car and felt amazed we had got through it! we both decided we would never go back untill our fitness levels were way up! but we do plan on returning!

we head home and im thinking the whole way! my god i bet thats probably easy compared to where some people must go!

so all in all we had a awesome day and its made us want to ride even more but were defiantly going to be sticking to the easier routes for a while before we try our hand at something a bit harder!

we had some video cameras with us and tried to get some footage so once ive checked it and seen if it worked ill post some up if it looks any good!

thanks for reading

tom

sorry if its a shit story but i felt it was worth sharing! oh and we now need to rebuild boot's hubs because they couldnt take the pounding they got

Hey Tom , Great story I really loved reading this , brought back memories of when I first started mtbiking. As you get fitter and your skills improve you will realise it was the best thing you ever took up and yesterday sounds like a landmark. Welcome to the world of mountainbiking my friend.

That's a great story Tom and sounds like a fantastic way to spend a Sunday. I'm new to the game and haven't done any proper trails since I was about 10 so for me it's good to I won't be on my own in the struggle to greatness.

Maurice

Haha hey ninja and maurice its crazy im actually a bike mechanic but my passion has always been about cars i just loved the "engineering" when it came to fixing bikes but after putting on kilo after kilo i decided i needed to get fit and what better way than the technology i know! a bike! so i dug out my 11 year old claud butler stripped it back to the frame a rebuilt it from scratch putting better suspension on new groupset hydro brakes, lyterally you wouldnt know its the same bike!

maurice you should try thetford the reason i love it there is the fact theres a set route that you can follow and cant get lost and its really easy with a few technical sections i keep putting off going to epping or thorndon because i dont know my way around! im getting there slowly but having an understanding of the technology really helps me! i can make adjustments to the gears while im riding which helped alot at bedgebury! i just need to get my lungs heart and legs alot fitter!

Tom, If you want a ride round epping I can take ya. I can put together a pretty easy route and we can do a nice gentle 10 miler less/more up to you. The offers there dont be afraid to ask.
We are all here to help each other dude

Cool i will deffinatly be up for that ninja i just need to convince the other half to let me out! apparently i should of spent time with the kids on sunday! (i spent time with them monday and tuesday so dont know what shes moaning about)

but as you know women are always right!

Beg to differ there dude

Bedgbury is a lot more fun in the dry! those hills are also a bit easier when your not slipping backwards! LOL

Good one, glad you enjoyed it and didnt get put off.

Hi,I did enjoy that,that was a good read,although what were u thinking with the word's women are alway's right....me and you need to have word's lol,glad u enjoyed the ride at bedgebury as their is load's of good ride's out there,thing's will only get better m8,hope to see you on a ride soon.

Haha great review

Bedgebury is a great place to ride and you will enjoy it a lot more in the dry. cardiac hill does take some doing even if your used to riding up hill

a few of us was riding Bedgebury a few sundays ago when it was really hot, we covered 21miles and done cardiac twice, second time i thought i was gonna need oxygen when i got to the top lol by the end of the day we were totally shattered but loved every bit of it..

definitely a good idea to head out with someone else knowledgeable at some point Tom. I've been out about 6 times round Epping by myself, and a few times with others who were as new as I was. Epping has so many trails - some of them go nowhere whereas others look like nothing but turn out to be epic. It has the feeling of offering so much if you know where to go...

Wicked write up (story) Tom..... There's a few places round the UK when I first started out - all them years ago, lol - that I remember feeling like you, and now they're just walks in the park. As mentioned, time behind the bars is your best tutor, and fitness comes with the work you put in, so keep at it mate and we'll catch you on a ride soon ay? :thumbed:

Cool write up. I can remember where I got my stoke back after a few years of not riding. It was an awesome feeling

Yup hoping to get out on a ride with you guys as soon as i can so u can all laugh at me but i have to convince the other half to let me as were getting married at the end of july and she doesnt want me there with broken bones or black eyes etc lol hopfully will be able to get out on weekend of the 23rd

Nice one Tom, I know how you felt, I found Bedgebury not long after getting in to bikes last year. best bit of singl track iv found so far.