This is a ride around the waymarked MTB trail that goes around Friston Forest in East Sussex.
The Friston Forest ride is one of my personal favourites; it packs a lot of action and variation in to a relatively short ride, with some hair-raising descents and some amazing singletrack through the trees.
We normally get round the trail in around an hour and a half including a few stops for food / drink / chat along the way, but it is the ideal venue to ride when time is at a premium and you only have a few hours on your hands.
Being a forest venue, it is theoretically rideable for most of the year, but as with Tilgate, my other favourite forest venue in the area, I leave it well alone during winter to do my bit for preventing excessive erosion to the trail.
1. In the carpark, start of the ride
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2. The first marker for the MTB trail.
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3. Follow the trail through the trees to the wall.. Continue straight ahead up the path.
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4. Climb over another wall.
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5. At the first crossroads, continue on until the next turning on your right; go up the singletrack path and turn left at the top.
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6. Up the fireroad..
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7. Until the next turning on the left (there is a route marker) - this is called "Butchers Hole" I think - it's a wicked windy bit of singletrack that goes through the trees, on an off-camber surface - very slippery in winter, and great fun. No pictures through here - it's way too much fun to stop!
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8. The top of Butchers Hole, where it comes back out on to the fireroad. This last section is a beast to get up - you need to prepare early by changing gear, and be prepared to stomp up the last few metres.
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9. At the same point, another route marker. Complete with obligatory leaning bike.. this is my riding buddy's GT Avalanche 1.0
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10. Our second instance of fallen branch blocking our path.. we were starting to get paranoid by this point.. rabid ramblers perhaps (no offence to any non-rabid ramblers out there!)?
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11. The start of another excellent piece of singletrack.. this snakes through the trees on to another fireroad.
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12. This is me (look closely!) riding down the singletrack..
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13. Looking back up the hill. Trying to get a sense of how steep it is.
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14. This is my favourite bit! And yes, the descent is as steep as the sign suggests.
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15. Action shot.. wish I'd pulled my jacket down a bit before starting to ride ; )
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16. Further down..
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17. At the bottom, follow the trail in to the trees, for more singletrack action (uphill though..)
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18. Turn right at the top..
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19. And follow the path as it curves round to the left..
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20. At the top, continue over on to the next part of the trail.
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21. At the top of that trail, turn left, head down the trail to the next direction marker, and turn right
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22. Action shot – goin down the path..
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23. Turn right at the bottom, follow the trail up..
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24. Turn left at the top..
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25. The path starts going up..
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26. Turn right at the top..
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27. Turn left at the top
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28. Follow the hill down and turn right when you get to the marker.
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29. Turn left at the top.
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30. Follow the path down through the trees.. gets muddy down here so be careful.
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31. At the bottom of the path, cross over the fire road, and continue up the path on the other side..
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32. At the top, follow this path to the left, and quickly back round to the right.
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33. This is the path going round a “bombhole".
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34. Follow the path round and out on to this wide path; this gets very sloppy after rain.
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35. At the next marker turn left off the path. Follow the path round to the right, turning right at the cross roads..
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36. Turn right when the path opens out, and follow it down.
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37. continue on down the path
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38. at the bottom of the path, turn right and up the road for a small while, then turn left; again, there is a marker here.
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39. follow this trail down. There is a break in the photos here; on the fast sections, I enjoy myself too much to stop for photos ; )
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40. This sign has been considerately placed at the bottom for unsuspecting walkers / horse riders.
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41. Follow the path down
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42. The path opens out to this cool view across the forest..
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43. At the bottom of the path, you turn right up a road again, and then left at this sign. This is a wicked path through the trees – look out for the fork about half way down – you need to take the left fork, but there are several stumps sticking up to avoid.
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44. Go straight ahead at the crossroads, and down on to the next path which has some great windy single track through the trees. No photos through the whole of this section, ‘fraid – it’s too fast and flowing to stop for photos but the route’s self-explanatory anyway. Go over on to the path up through the trees that you can see here, and follow the path as it snakes up hill..
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45. This off-camber track is at the top – I rarely clear the whole of this without dabbing, and when the ground’s wet it’s even harder! My riding buddy did it on this ride though – jammy git! He he.
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46. Follow this fireroad up to the junction with another fireroad and join it.
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47. This is an incredibly steep descent from this fireroad; it doesn’t follow the way marked route, so we don’t go down it. It crosses several paths so beware other users!
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48. Continue along the path
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49. Until you get to to this turning on your right – follow the singletrack down, taking the first turning on the left. We’re nearly back to the start now; follow this path along to..
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50. ..the wall that we climbed over earlier and follow the path all the way back to the carpark, the way you came originally.
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51. here are the two bikes, looking cleaner than I remembered but actually carrying half of Friston Forest between them!
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