Tag Archives: Specialized

Bike Rides, MTB

EyeCycled the Swinley Forest Mountain Bike Trails

Leave a comment
(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.

The Green and the Blue Trail begins and ends here.
The Green and the Blue Trail begins and ends here.

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.
  • Swinley Bike Hub. Bicycle rental.
    Swinley Bike Hub. Bicycle rental.

    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/

Please rate this post by clicking on the desired star (1 = Awful, 5 = Excellent)
[Total: 2 Average: 5]
Bicycles, Hybrids

Specialized Cross Trail Disc

Leave a comment

Don´t expect this to be a technical article about the bike. You can search Google for that and will find plenty of information (or you can click here), much more than my very limited technical knowledge can cover on it or any other bike, as a matter of fact.

Specialized Crosstrail Disc Bicycle
Specialized Crosstrail Disc Bicycle

The story behind this bike starts with the plans for my first bike touring. In 2014 a friend and I decided to go visit his cousin in the outskirts of Paris by bicycle.

At the time my father-in-law (who passed away that same year) was fighting an advanced type of cancer and I wanted to do something I had never done before and raise some money for Cancer Care Patients in his honour.

I am not really the road bike type of guy, but for a while I was already thinking of buying a hybrid bike to have easier and faster rides on roads (29″ wheels or 700cc, lighter frame, etc).

I was having a little trouble with the pedals of my Hard Rock, so I rode to the nearest bike shop in Chrowthorne to have them replaced and while I was waiting and chatting to the owner of the shop I asked him what he had on offer in terms of Hybrids. The first bike he showed me was the Specialized Crosstrail. I immediately liked it. Spent a few minutes looking at every detail of the bike, sat on it pressed the pedal and that was it… I wanted to ride it, so I bought it.

Of course I couldn´t ride it home because I was on my Hard Rock, so I left a deposit to secure the bike and came back 2 days later to pay the rest and take it home. With the bike I also bought the rack for my panniers for the Bracknell to Paris trip.

Specialized Crosstrail Disc and me
Specialized Crosstrail Disc and me. March 2013.

I like all my bikes, but this one is special. I love it! It´s in the same price range as the Hard Rock and has a similar groupset, hydraulic disc brakes, etc, but, although the tech specs are nice and make for a very smooth ride, I feel in love with it because it marked a change in my life, a departure from a person who was very controlled on his finances and would not spend a penny without at least a month´s worth of product and market research. In fact I discovered later that I paid about £50 more in that shop, that day, than I could have if I had done some research and the most amazing thing is, I really don´t care. I liked it and bought it straight away.

I´ll have a separate post on the Bracknell to Paris ride, so I won´t add much information about it here, but the bike performed great. It´s great to have the comforts of a mountain mike, like a front suspension, with the benefits of less weight, a bigger wheel and hybrid road tyres.

This is a really great bike and I can´t recommend it enough.

Please rate this post by clicking on the desired star (1 = Awful, 5 = Excellent)
[Total: 2 Average: 3]
Bicycles, MTB

Specialized Hard Rock Disc

Leave a comment
Specialized Hardrock Sport Disc 2012
Specialized Hard Rock Sport Disc 2012 (Stock Photo)

Don´t expect this to be a technical article about the bike. You can search Google for that and will find plenty of information (or you can click here), much more than my very limited technical knowledge can cover on it or any other bike, as a matter of fact.

I don´t know about the newest cassette, gear, breaks or groupset technologies and about the quality of the various brands in the market (e.g. . I ride bikes, but don´t know much about them other than the known brands in the market with which we often associate quality. Specialized is one of such brands.

So allow me to go back to “B4” and to digress a little… I´ve lived for 2 periods of my life in the UK. Back in the 90s I lived for 7 years here, then I left in 1999 and came back in 2006. When I came back the first thing I bought to myself was a £60 bicycle in a Sports Direct shop in Reading (I think). Rode it a few times and then didn´t use for years (or only very occasionally). Prior that that bike I had many more and I often rode a bicycle to the Uni / work back in the 80s.

The Specialized Hard Rock Disc, however, was my first “quality” bike.

Specialized Hard Rock Disc Bicycle
At the Great Hollands Recreation Ground

I know quality is something relative and when it comes to bicycles you can easily find premium bikes at the price of a small family car. In comparison to the £60 bike from Sports Direct it was the best bike I ever had up to that point in life. Even better, it came as a Father´s day gift from the mother of my children.

I must confess, I ride bikes, but don´t know much about them. There are known brands in the market with which we often associate quality. Specialized is one of such brands.

I still can remember the excitement after completing my first 10 Km on my old bike many years ago when I took up cycling again and then comparing the same route on the new bike the day after I got it. What a difference…

Specialized Hard Rock Disc Bicycle
At the Savernake Park

The rapid fire triggers was something I hadn´t experience in a bicycle before and the precision to which the gears changed was impressive. I don´t think I would have progressed in cycling as I did if it wasn´t for this gift from my family.

The pictures I used in this post with of my first ride on June 2012. A route of just under 20 Km (12 miles), I think.

It was with this Bike that I did my first long distance ride from London to Brighton for the British Heart Foundation on June 2013, exactly 1 year after I got it.

Me and my bike at the London to Brighton bike ride organized by the British Heart Foundation.
Me and my bike at the London to Brighton bike ride organized by the British Heart Foundation.

I kept my old £60 bike for many years after receiving the Hard Rock and it was on that bike I mounted the kangaroo seat I used to ride with my younger son, then a Toddler. After he outgrew the seat it was time to also part from the bike and I sold both (bike and seat) to a nice lady that came to collect it at the Bracknell train station with her baby attached to her back.

Wee Ride Kagaroo Seat
My old £60 bike with me and my little boy on the Wee Ride Kangaroo Seat.
Specialized Hard Rock Disc Bicycle
At the South Hill Park

If you are thinking of getting a new bike in the price range of £400 to £500 and want a mountain bike? Totally recommend this one. It hasn´t given me any trouble in years and the day I decide to part from it will be a sad day for me for many reasons.

Please rate this post by clicking on the desired star (1 = Awful, 5 = Excellent)
[Total: 5 Average: 3.2]