So I went out for my first ride to Epping on Good Friday - awesome place!
I'd planned to train to Chingford from Liverpool St, but was closed so trained to Ponder's End and crossed the reservoirs via Lea Valley Road, through some random suburban streets and up into Hawks Wood. Skirting the golf course round to cross the road into Bury Wood was pretty chilled riding, but I must have been enjoying it as I hadn't stopped since leaving Ponder's End to turn on the GPS. In the pic I'm halfway through Bury before turning it on.
My next leg through Bury and Hill Woods were a bit of a blur - lots of fun! Pretty much any deviation from the bridleway yielded some fun results and I just kept rambling my way through some awesome terrain - tight, technical and rutty singletrack through thin forest, 80% of it dry, although some black sandy crap bogged me down as well. That's pretty much the go at Epping it seems...take as many side paths as you can. Some end randomly, but most are good fun.
I hadn't planned to go up as far north as I did, but was next to Theydon Bois golf course before I decided to turn back. I stopped for lunch there and a break, and just as well, as the best 60 seconds of the ride came just as I was leaving this area to head back through Great Monk Wood; a tight downhill singletrack section that actually had me hooting with laughter
I hadn't realised how far I had to go to get back until some lady marking diverting traffic sent me in the completely wrong direction. Despite having GPS I was hobbling around like an idiot asking for directions...dunno what was going on there. Eventually I found the way back to Hill Wood and missioned back slightly west from the route I had taken in. This was super fun and I'm glad I had the stamina for one last push through woods.
Defo keen for round 2 sometime soon. Think I'll join some of you fullas though - felt like I was missing some good stuff by not having a clue where to go! A fun day though for sure.
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