It had been our original aim to hold our Swinley Group Ride in May, however we found out that the Gorrick MTB Event clashed with this so we postponed our Swinley Group Ride until June - Saturday 12th June 2010 infact.

To our slight horror first thing on Saturday morning we found out that another running/MTB event was on which we had seen no dates or press releases for, however thankfully the route for the event was mainly sticking to fireroads and not using any of the trails we had planned to use for our Group Ride. Phew.

The date we had planned for our Swinley Ride in May saw miserable weather - wind and rain and cold temperatures, however we were blessed for our June ride with glorious sunshine, warm temperatures and bone dry trails.

Six of us met bright and early at the Discovery Centre at Swinley Forest and took to the trails around 10:30 am. 

The plan for the day was to take in our planned 15-20mile loop, followed by lunch and cake at the Discovery Centre Cafe (the cake comes highly recommended), and then for those interested an extra loop after lunch, or visits back to they're favourite trails for another go!

The route itself was 95% singletrack, only taking in short sections of fireroads to jump between trails. Among our group for this ride were several first visitors to Swinley, so it was great to show them round and show them what we feel is the best selection of trails there for a days riding. We took in some of the infamously named local favourite trails, some technical climbs, technical descents, and a staggering amount of fast flowing singletrack. Some of the most popular 'infamous local favourite trails' were ridden a couple of times while we were there before moving on to the next section.

We ended up shortening the first half of the day just a tad, to around 16miles, to get back to the Discovery Centre to let a couple of the group pack up and depart for family commitments in the afternoon. After a round of tea and cake the rest of us took back to the trails for another 5 miles or so of singletrack magnificence!

It was a great day all-round - awesome trails, fine weather, new faces and another superb group for a great days ride.

A big shout of thanks has to go out to everyone who attended the ride, and made it a huge success once again. A special note of thanks has to go out to Mike, one of our BMTB staff riders, for planning and leading the ride.

To view our photo gallery of the day Click Here

Keep your eyes peeled on the site over the next coming couple of weeks for news and details of our July 2010 Group ride - we hope to see you there!