Sarah Miller
July 20th 03, 07:15 PM
PAul and I went to play in the wood today, in sech of the grail of muni,
good single track. We went to Haldon Forest near Exeter and would you
believe it, we found some pretty good single track with out even looking
very hard.
After a quick scout round the carpark ( Bullers Hill) to find the most
promising looking path we headed off into the forest on a tight down hil
path with a scattering of roots, skirted round the bottom of a chalk pit
and followed a lovely little single track across the hillside, ignoring
all crossing paths we followed this line as it twisted and started to
drop down the hill. As it dropped it became quite a challenging ride
with some very steep sections and one or two Northshoreesque bridges.
Having sepent so much gravity karma so quickly we then had to do some
less exciting fire road climbing to gain some high ground and start
exploring a different section of the woods. We managed to find the start
point for the various way marked walkers trails, and decided to sort of
follow the green/red one and see what we found. This section was more
mixed with some good sections intersperced by duller bits. We did find a
really cool stone built shelter with a fireplace and benches which would
be great for a rest stop on a winter day , and there is a patch down by a
leat with a short crawl through tunnel and stepping stones and
bridges. There is some good technical stuff, but nothing really long like
the first bit we found.
We also found some bits where markers have been put on trees
and stones to saw the route of a trail that isn't there yet. There is an
MTB trail planned for Haldon Forest and I think we found bits of the route
that havn't yet been carved out of the undergrowth . Looks promising
for future ridnig though.
It looks like Haldon Forest will be joining Woodbury Common in our growing
list of good muni sites in Devon. We havn't finished exploring yet.
Sarah
--
Union of UK Unicyclists
By and for UK riders
www.unicycle.org.uk
good single track. We went to Haldon Forest near Exeter and would you
believe it, we found some pretty good single track with out even looking
very hard.
After a quick scout round the carpark ( Bullers Hill) to find the most
promising looking path we headed off into the forest on a tight down hil
path with a scattering of roots, skirted round the bottom of a chalk pit
and followed a lovely little single track across the hillside, ignoring
all crossing paths we followed this line as it twisted and started to
drop down the hill. As it dropped it became quite a challenging ride
with some very steep sections and one or two Northshoreesque bridges.
Having sepent so much gravity karma so quickly we then had to do some
less exciting fire road climbing to gain some high ground and start
exploring a different section of the woods. We managed to find the start
point for the various way marked walkers trails, and decided to sort of
follow the green/red one and see what we found. This section was more
mixed with some good sections intersperced by duller bits. We did find a
really cool stone built shelter with a fireplace and benches which would
be great for a rest stop on a winter day , and there is a patch down by a
leat with a short crawl through tunnel and stepping stones and
bridges. There is some good technical stuff, but nothing really long like
the first bit we found.
We also found some bits where markers have been put on trees
and stones to saw the route of a trail that isn't there yet. There is an
MTB trail planned for Haldon Forest and I think we found bits of the route
that havn't yet been carved out of the undergrowth . Looks promising
for future ridnig though.
It looks like Haldon Forest will be joining Woodbury Common in our growing
list of good muni sites in Devon. We havn't finished exploring yet.
Sarah
--
Union of UK Unicyclists
By and for UK riders
www.unicycle.org.uk