Starting points - The Warren, Caversham
Firstly, I've noticed that Streetmap have messed around with their site somewhat, which has stopped most of my previous links going to 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey scale. This is annoying. To rectify this, click on the zoom scale (not on the "+" symbol) to resize the view. I'll try to run through and update the links.
Anyway...
In the post entitled Starting points, I described The Warren in Caversham as the most useful starting point for mountain biking from Reading. Now I'm going into a bit more detail.
As mentioned before, things start here (Streetmap link) on St Peter's Hill:
As you turn down here, passing the church on your left, you have two options: to carry on down to the right hand bend at the bottom of the slope, by the Canoe club, or to take the first right:
If you've opted for the former option, you just need to follow the road until it runs out. Taking the right turn, however, is a tad more interesting. There's a sharp climb, followed by a flat bit, then a turnoff here:
This has brought you to an unsurfaced road, which drops from the Upper Warren to the main Warren road, pictured here from the bottom:
The right hand rut on this road actually has a little drop and some loose rocks, to get you in the mood. The road is quite a challenge on the way back into town - it's short and steep, and quite tough on a singlespeed.
Turn right at the bottom of this track, or keep following the Warren road if you've gone straight down and past the canoe club. You'll eventually arrive at a gate:
This spot is the start of the offroad trails proper (and is very popular at night for other forms of... erm... outdoor pursuits). You can keep following the track until you emerge from the trees here. This photo looks back towards the Warren from this spot:
On the way to this spot, however, you'll see a gate on the right:
A curious path, this. For years the classification of this track was pretty much non-existent. An ambiguous marking on the Streetmap map still remains. Everyone used the path, because it's a good link to another important bridleway, as we'll see in a moment. Then, last spring, notices appeared to say the path was being classified as a bridleway, with another new footpath down to the gate at the end of the Warren (see above). Great... until Reading's right-of-way people (the path is just inside the Reading district... Oxfordshire is about three feet to the West) marked it with yellow footpath signs. Only about a month ago did it get blue bridleway signs. As the photograph shows, both sets of signs are still in place - the yellow footpath arrow on the wooden post on the left, and the blue bridleway arrow on the tree. So that's cleared that up then.
This always-dry trail climbs sharply until it emerges on the Upper Warren here. The trail is the one curving round to the right as we look back at it in this photograph (the new footpath is straight on and leftish, over the grass):
The trail emerges to the right of the new house in this photo. It's a fun little descent ridden from this end, in fact.
Now, you'll be wanting to carry on past the white house...
...to pick up "Jackson's Lane", the singletrack across the golf course starting here. The entrance is to the left of the cars:
With either of these options, you are now out in the open country and ready to explore some cracking trails. More on some of those very shortly.
Oh, for people into night-riding, these trails are teeming with wildlife. Badgers frequent the Warren itself, and the track off it. Late on summer nights you see them almost every ride. They tend to mind their own business if you do too. And on the footpath-bridleway-unclassified-whatever, I've spooked owls out of the tree canopy above on more than one occasion. It's quite something watching one of these creatures fly along a few feet ahead of you.
There are full size photos at http://jonhall.fotopic.net/c400023.html. Please excuse the lack of sharpness in many of them - the light conditions were very poor as it was nearly dark. Bring on spring.
By the way, it's muddy out there...
Anyway...
In the post entitled Starting points, I described The Warren in Caversham as the most useful starting point for mountain biking from Reading. Now I'm going into a bit more detail.
As mentioned before, things start here (Streetmap link) on St Peter's Hill:
As you turn down here, passing the church on your left, you have two options: to carry on down to the right hand bend at the bottom of the slope, by the Canoe club, or to take the first right:
If you've opted for the former option, you just need to follow the road until it runs out. Taking the right turn, however, is a tad more interesting. There's a sharp climb, followed by a flat bit, then a turnoff here:
This has brought you to an unsurfaced road, which drops from the Upper Warren to the main Warren road, pictured here from the bottom:
The right hand rut on this road actually has a little drop and some loose rocks, to get you in the mood. The road is quite a challenge on the way back into town - it's short and steep, and quite tough on a singlespeed.
Turn right at the bottom of this track, or keep following the Warren road if you've gone straight down and past the canoe club. You'll eventually arrive at a gate:
This spot is the start of the offroad trails proper (and is very popular at night for other forms of... erm... outdoor pursuits). You can keep following the track until you emerge from the trees here. This photo looks back towards the Warren from this spot:
On the way to this spot, however, you'll see a gate on the right:
A curious path, this. For years the classification of this track was pretty much non-existent. An ambiguous marking on the Streetmap map still remains. Everyone used the path, because it's a good link to another important bridleway, as we'll see in a moment. Then, last spring, notices appeared to say the path was being classified as a bridleway, with another new footpath down to the gate at the end of the Warren (see above). Great... until Reading's right-of-way people (the path is just inside the Reading district... Oxfordshire is about three feet to the West) marked it with yellow footpath signs. Only about a month ago did it get blue bridleway signs. As the photograph shows, both sets of signs are still in place - the yellow footpath arrow on the wooden post on the left, and the blue bridleway arrow on the tree. So that's cleared that up then.
This always-dry trail climbs sharply until it emerges on the Upper Warren here. The trail is the one curving round to the right as we look back at it in this photograph (the new footpath is straight on and leftish, over the grass):
The trail emerges to the right of the new house in this photo. It's a fun little descent ridden from this end, in fact.
Now, you'll be wanting to carry on past the white house...
...to pick up "Jackson's Lane", the singletrack across the golf course starting here. The entrance is to the left of the cars:
With either of these options, you are now out in the open country and ready to explore some cracking trails. More on some of those very shortly.
Oh, for people into night-riding, these trails are teeming with wildlife. Badgers frequent the Warren itself, and the track off it. Late on summer nights you see them almost every ride. They tend to mind their own business if you do too. And on the footpath-bridleway-unclassified-whatever, I've spooked owls out of the tree canopy above on more than one occasion. It's quite something watching one of these creatures fly along a few feet ahead of you.
There are full size photos at http://jonhall.fotopic.net/c400023.html. Please excuse the lack of sharpness in many of them - the light conditions were very poor as it was nearly dark. Bring on spring.
By the way, it's muddy out there...
posted by Jon Hall at 11:42 PM
2 Comments:
Jon - I gave up using streetmap for the Trail Break site links for that very reason. I understand it's something to to with them not being able to afford the OS lisencing rate or something. They seem to alter the suffix on their links periodically to prevent direct linking.
I found the answer was to use multimap instead.
Martin - Trail Break
Thanks Martin - didn't realise that. I'll use Multimap in future.
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