Well we went this afternoon.....
To start I'd like to say I really wanted this place to be good... I live ten minutes away and pass it on my commute, it would be great for me.
Problem is it's just OK... but I'll add a couple of provisos to that.
First off I rode it with my 10 year old son and there are obviously times when he isn't carrying as much speed as you would like, this tends to take a bit of 'flow' out of any trail. Secondly it's very tight in places and better rider could carry more speed through these bits... maybe that would help??
I chatted to a couple of other riders while we were there and one of them described it as 'unnecessarily jerky'.... it's a good description. I don't know if they are expecting the 'humps' to wear down but right now they are very sharp and tend to take the momentum out of your ride. I think this might be an intentional speed limiting thing though.
To be fare there are a couple of nice runs but they are very short... which leads to the other big problem.
It's tiny.
They say that it's got five miles of trails. We rode this little lot...
... and totaled 6 miles over three laps. As far as I could see we didn't ride one section of the red or any black but I don't see that adding 3 miles to a lap, unless we missed a big section out??
This brings us to the cost.... £6 for an adult and £4 for concessions.... so a £10 for us, ah no, concession prices only apply after 5:00 pm
The other problem for paying £6:00 to ride here is the fact that you don't seem to have to....
The trails run through a public park and can be accessed from the public road by anyone. We saw a couple of groups riding who didn't have wrist bands... they probably felt like they were getting their monies worth
It's obviously already a problem with little laminated bits of paper stuck up saying that you have to go to the office to pay before you ride... yeah right, that's going to work.
So worth the trip.... well if your trip is very short and you take the cheaper of the two payment options then give it a go otherwise go to Redbridge, it's cheaper and better. Better option still... go to Epping.
That said I'll give it another go, on my way home one day, just in case it grows on me.