(Scroll down for the videos)

For a while I wanted to record and post about one of Bracknell´s greatest attractions for cycling, the Mountain Biking trails in the Swinley Forest. I took a young friend to the trails yesterday, but I made too many stops and I wanted to get a continuous footage of the ride / trails.

Just as my luck would be as I arrived in the Swinley Forest it started to rain. If you read / watched the post and video about my Bath Two Tunnels ride under rain you must think, this guy loves to ride bicycles when is raining… No, I don´t! But I live in the UK and you can´t escape it here. It´s a beautiful country, but rains a lot. I don´t think I need to write what already exists available in the web, so I did some copy and paste from some of these resources. All credit goes to the authors and the links are available. From the Bracknell Forest Council Page: “Swinley Forest is an area of the Windsor Estate between Bracknell and Bagshot to the west of the A322. Owned and managed by The Crown Estate, it comprises 1000 hectares of mainly Scots Pine woodland. Three cycle trails in line with the International Mountain Bike Association industry standards are available for you to enjoy in Swinley Forest. The green, blue and (*) red cycle routes all begin from The Look Out Discovery Centre and provide a range of challenges for families cycling for fun to highly skilled riders. Further information about the cycle trails is provided by The Crown Estate on the Royal Landscape website. Please visit The Look Out Discovery Centre’s outdoor activities page for information about how to get there, about car parking charges and bike hire available from Swinley Bike Hub. (*) A small part of the red trail is currently diverted owing to the presence of ground nesting birds.”

• I found out through Google that there is a Mountain Biking group called Swinley Riders. They are a lot of information available in their WEB site: http://www.swinleyriders.co.uk/. Will try to get in touch with them.

• 

  If you are visiting and don´t have a bike, you can rent an excellent one at the Swinley Bike Hut. Rental Prices, according to their web site is £15 for 2 hours (includes helmets) and £5 for additional hours. 2 Hours is sufficient if you only want to do the green and blue trail. Please check their web site for any pricing changes.

• If you want a map of the trails, there is one in PDF format here.

OK, enough info, right? I did the green and the Blue trails today. When I have time, and hopefully the weather improves, I will try to update this post to include the Red trail too. The data below is from my Garmin Edge 810 and does not coincide with the data given in some of the resources above.

Green Trail:

Very Easy – For total beginners, families and small children.

• Distance: 0.93 Km or 0.56 miles
• Time: 3 min 57 sec.
• Average Speed: 11.7 kph
• Max. Speed: 23.7 kph
• Elevation Gain: 8m
• Average Heart Beat: 176 bpm
• Max. Heart beat: 186 bpm
• Calories: 65 C

Blue Trail:

Intermediate – Not for complete beginners. Quite a few climbs and some will actually get your heart pumping and leave you breathless (see the charts).

• Distance: 8.65 Km or 5.37 miles
• Time: 44 min 32 sec. (I am somewhat out of shape. I managed to do it around 30 min in the past)
• Average Speed: 11.7 kph
• Max. Speed: 31.3 kph
• Elevation Gain: 105m
• Average Heart Beat: 178 bpm
• Max. Heart beat: 195 bpm
• Calories: 617 C

Red Trail:

Separate post here:

http://eyecycled.com/2016/07/09/eyecycled-swinley-forest-red-mountain-bike-trail/