Rockhopper70
Active member
As is the way, I may have to move a child out of Uni digs over the course of the weekend, and the notice I’ll get of this might be short. I should know the night before and I’ll drop an update on here either way.
Guided ride - Sherwood Pines, NCB area, & Vicar Water. Sun 28th Jun'26
- Thread starter steve_sordy
- Start date
Cya there @steve_sordy
- Thread starter
- #33
We now have 9 riders.
We now have 6 definites
@steve_sordy Confirmed
@johnc Confirmed
@weiran TBC
@Davvee Confirmed
@skismith +1 TBC
And 3 possibles TBC
@Rockhopper70
@kefconstruction 's +2
To save us all hanging about for possible latecomers, it would be great if all could either confirm that they are definitely coming or definitely not coming.
We now have 6 definites
@steve_sordy Confirmed
@johnc Confirmed
@weiran TBC
@Davvee Confirmed
@skismith +1 TBC
And 3 possibles TBC
@Rockhopper70
@kefconstruction 's +2
To save us all hanging about for possible latecomers, it would be great if all could either confirm that they are definitely coming or definitely not coming.
- Thread starter
- #34
Thanks @kefconstruction , If your two buddies still want to come ask them to let you know and you can drop me a msg. The ride that @johnc and I have planned is very much better than anything Sherwood Pines alone can offer.
skismith
Member
Hi all my TBC is Mark Brassington & he’s a definite.
- Thread starter
- #36
Updated 26th Jun'26
We now have a possible 10 riders.
We now have 7 definites
@steve_sordy Confirmed
@johnc Confirmed
@weiran Confirmed
@Davvee Confirmed
@skismith +1 Confirmed
@Sparkomatic Confirmed
And 3 possibles TBC
@Rockhopper70
@kefconstruction 's +2 (Kef said not to wait for his +2)
To save us all hanging about for possible latecomers, it would be great if all could either confirm that they are definitely coming or definitely not coming.
We now have a possible 10 riders.
We now have 7 definites
@steve_sordy Confirmed
@johnc Confirmed
@weiran Confirmed
@Davvee Confirmed
@skismith +1 Confirmed
@Sparkomatic Confirmed
And 3 possibles TBC
@Rockhopper70
@kefconstruction 's +2 (Kef said not to wait for his +2)
To save us all hanging about for possible latecomers, it would be great if all could either confirm that they are definitely coming or definitely not coming.
Last edited:
Sparkomatic
Member
Hi @steve_sordy
Plans have changed meaning I'm free Sunday so I'd like to come along. Cheers!
Plans have changed meaning I'm free Sunday so I'd like to come along. Cheers!
- Thread starter
- #38
I was out at PInes again yesterday, suffering on your behalf. I was out for 4.5 hours and only did 4.8 miles. Yes!
What the hell was I doing?
Slashing back brambles and, most unexpectedly - bracken! That stuff must have grown 15" in all directions since my last visit. It was taller than me and was shaking hands across the trail. I haven't done everywhere on our 20 mile route, just the bits that I thought might be bad, and they were worse! If I hadn't cleared them, we would have had to walk!
No more biking, no more gardening now until Sunday.
What the hell was I doing?
Slashing back brambles and, most unexpectedly - bracken! That stuff must have grown 15" in all directions since my last visit. It was taller than me and was shaking hands across the trail. I haven't done everywhere on our 20 mile route, just the bits that I thought might be bad, and they were worse! If I hadn't cleared them, we would have had to walk!
No more biking, no more gardening now until Sunday.
So potent
Very shoddy work
Only joking ..hope it all goes well..
So potentially Steve ..there could be 15.2 miles of walking ..
Very shoddy work
Only joking ..hope it all goes well..
- Thread starter
- #40
Worse than that! The 4.8 miles of riding was getting to, between, and from the two worst bits. So approx four hours of slashing, sweating and pushing the bike. What was worse, I had forgotten to apply sunscreen, so I was uncomfortably aware of the sun burning through the tree cover. Even worse than that I had also forgotten to apply insect repellent. Yikes!So potent
So potentially Steve ..there could be 15.2 miles of walking ..
Very shoddy work
Only joking ..hope it all goes well..
Afterwards, I was chatting to one of the Sherwood PInes Cycles guys, and he told me that they had lent two emtbs for the Forest England rangers to prune back the overgrowth (regular trails only) with their powered cutters. When they returned they said that they could not believe how much the bracken had grown in just one week. Enormous growth were the words they used.
If I haven't seen it, it's not there!
One of the lads is definitely coming he said he will see you there and looking forward to it
Funnily enough his name is Steve aswell!!
Rockhopper70
Active member
I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it due to taxi/moving duties as feared. I hope you all have a good ride, and hopefully next time I can join you all.
- Thread starter
- #45
At least you can see over it!
- Thread starter
- #46
We now have 8 confirmed riders. 
@steve_sordy Confirmed
@johnc Confirmed
@weiran Confirmed
@Davvee Confirmed
@skismith +1 Confirmed
@Sparkomatic Confirmed
Kef's mate Steve Confirmed
@steve_sordy Confirmed
@johnc Confirmed
@weiran Confirmed
@Davvee Confirmed
@skismith +1 Confirmed
@Sparkomatic Confirmed
Kef's mate Steve Confirmed
- Thread starter
- #47
I have just checked the weather forecast for tomorrow. It's going to be GREAT!
It will be partly cloudy, low humidity, there will be a steady 14mph breeze and most importantly the temperature will be a highly desirable 21 - 23 deg C.
No rain! The air quality index is rated as 2, which is very low and therefore very good.
For hayfever sufferers, for tonight and tomorrow: grass pollen will be very high , but tree and ragweed pollen will be zero.
There are nettles and brambles everywhere, I just can't keep up with them. So come prepared.
Remember guys, it's a jungle out there! Ride safely!
It will be partly cloudy, low humidity, there will be a steady 14mph breeze and most importantly the temperature will be a highly desirable 21 - 23 deg C.
No rain! The air quality index is rated as 2, which is very low and therefore very good. For hayfever sufferers, for tonight and tomorrow: grass pollen will be very high , but tree and ragweed pollen will be zero.
There are nettles and brambles everywhere, I just can't keep up with them. So come prepared.
Remember guys, it's a jungle out there! Ride safely!
Last edited:
Sparkomatic
Member
Also don't forget to charge your bikes. Do it now!
Sorry @steve_sordy was late finishing work this morning so won’t make it sorry.
johnc
Active member
Also don't forget to charge your bikes. Do it now!
Perhaps you should heed your own words next time.
- Thread starter
- #51
I wish I'd seen that when I set up my bike to charge last night.Also don't forget to charge your bikes. Do it now!
And taken extra care! It is something I have done literally thousands of times and not once did I get it wrong!
What I do know is that I did not check this morning that it had charged anything at all since I left it with 78% in the tank.
I found out this morning at Sherwood PInes as I was chatting to the guys that turned up. YIKES!
Last edited:
johnc
Active member
Sorry Sparko this was aimed at Steve.
- Thread starter
- #53
Ride summary time.
We had seven riders turn up. @Davvee gave his apologies earlier. A brilliant bunch of guys.
Me, @johnc @weiran @Sparkomatic and three of @kefconstruction 's mates Luke, Steve and Jack.
I was hampered right from the start because my battery was only at 78%, completely my fault. I doubted it would be enough unless I started to dial down the power modes. I did that later.
The weather was absolutely great, warn and sunny but without being hot or sweaty. We were blessed with a misting of rain for 5 mins half way around that damped down the dust a bit. It seemed to me that we rode at the same sort of speed, so there were few places where we congregated whilst the slow ones caught up. As a consequence I forgot to take many pictures, just two in fact!
We toured the best bits of Pines, regular trails and off-piste, before dropping down on to the old railway line and then headed over to the National Coal Board land and onto the Wasteland. A few years ago, the NCB tried to stop 4WD vehicles by felling all the trees in a random and destructive manner. It worked, but didn't stop the motorbikes and after a while, us. Here is a pic taken a few months after. Previously this was a forest in all its glory, green and thriving. It had many bike trails running through it.
We dropped down the sand dune ridge and onto the wasteland, crossing over the wilderness of ruts and broken wood. To be honest, we were following trails left by motorbikes. (Thanks guys).
We climbed up the side of the tallest hill for miles around and took the team photo. Stuck at the front, I didn't see how the others got on behind me as the climb is in three steep sections with two flat bits in between (for a rest of sorts). But everyone seemed to arrive at the top closely bunched together. Now I think about it, they were probably held back by me.
We climbed further through what used to be a Gorse tunnel, until someone set fire to it. When it was flowering, you were at risk of an asthma attack just riding through it, but the flowers were so luminous that I'm sure you could ride in the dark. Now it is just scrub. It will recover.
I got my phone out to take a team photo at the highest point for miles around. But @johnc (John) insisted on taking the pic. The background is called Clipstone. John used his photographer's professional timing to ensure that photo was taken just as the wind inflated my unrestrained (no backpack) cycling top. I look like I have gained 50 pounds!
Jack, Luke, Steve, @weiran , @Sparkomatic , me (pretending to be a dirigible). John hiding behind the camera. He is so camera shy I sometimes wonder if he on a witness program!
From there we rode through dense netteles and descended down a steep trail (an old footpath) into the lakes around Vicar Water, a recreational area for the the people of Clipstone. They were out in their hundreds.
Climbing out of Vicar Water, the only person that had an off was me. And it was a good one! On a trail I had ridden many times, the bracken had grown a lot and had hidden the tree stump by the trail side. As told to me by Weiran who was right behind me, I was out of the saddle at the point that my right pedal came down on top of the stump. The whole bike rose up into the air and then stopped dead. I went fully over the bars. I can remember feeling my thighs rubbing over the bars and my feet catching on something (saddle, I suppose). I remember thinking "here comes a broken leg", but luck was with me. I went completely over and landed flat on my back with my head close to the front wheel of the bike. The thick bracken cushioned my fall and I was not even winded. Didn't even hit another stump. Lucky or what!
We returned to the Pines area and almost immediately back to the wasteland. This was where we got the welcome shower/mist. Very refreshing.
Everyone got up that steep sand dune at the end of the National Coal Board wasteland without too much trouble. To be honest that surprised me because it took me a few goes to get my new bike dialled into it. Respect guys!
Exiting the wasteland is via a descent that has slowly degraded over the years as the motorbikes have had their fun with it. Here is @Sparkomatic (Adam). If she zooms in his Mother might recognise him. He was last down as he had stopped for a pee and that gave me time to get my camera out. That dry sand over rock is like a mass of ball bearings.
From there we dropped back into the PInes area and climbed up to the bike park and Tornado Alley before climbing up to the trenches area. The trenches are a series of groundworks left behind by World War One troops who were being trained in trench warfare; how to live, fight and survive etc. They are hard to find because they are completely hidden from the those passing along the standard red, blue and green trails. Great fun though.
We got to one section of trenches that had become so overgrown with bracken that I decided it was unsafe to continue (hidden drops and sharp turns etc) and we backed out and took an alternative route. It was navigable only ten days previously!
Shortly after this, concerned about my battery life, I decided to miss out one section that was a loop of about a mile or so that came back to me. John led that section while I switched my bike off and had a break.
A little while later Luke, Jack and Steve (@kefconstruction 's mates) decided that they wanted to go to the Dirt Jump area and give that a go. We were right next to it at one point and we could have all done it if they had let onto me at the time. I hope that they managed to find it from my directions, we were more than a mile away at the time.
Making our way back towards the start point , we did the new bermy descent on the Blue trail that is loads of fun, as long as there are no slow movers in front of you! So we waited.
We discovered that just five yards of the off-piste trail has become a temporaily diverted red trail, but in the opposite direction to the way we were taking! I have no idea when that happened. The two guys we blocked were quite nice about it. We decided to see where the diversion went for future reference. Once I was on it and heading in the right direction, I recognised it immediately as an off-piste I used to do years ago. I knew that afyer it, we could take in a couple of rock drops on the red and also a few decent winding bermy descents on the Blue trail before heading back to the cafe. John and I might make that a permanent route change.
The four of us: me, @johnc @weiran @Sparkomatic got ourselves a table at the cafe and Weiran was kind enough to buy me a coffee. The four of us chatted for an hour about where we ride, bike stuff etc. I had a great time guys and I hope you did too!
Shame you couldn't make it @Davvee
We had seven riders turn up. @Davvee gave his apologies earlier. A brilliant bunch of guys.
Me, @johnc @weiran @Sparkomatic and three of @kefconstruction 's mates Luke, Steve and Jack.
I was hampered right from the start because my battery was only at 78%, completely my fault. I doubted it would be enough unless I started to dial down the power modes. I did that later.
The weather was absolutely great, warn and sunny but without being hot or sweaty. We were blessed with a misting of rain for 5 mins half way around that damped down the dust a bit. It seemed to me that we rode at the same sort of speed, so there were few places where we congregated whilst the slow ones caught up. As a consequence I forgot to take many pictures, just two in fact!
We toured the best bits of Pines, regular trails and off-piste, before dropping down on to the old railway line and then headed over to the National Coal Board land and onto the Wasteland. A few years ago, the NCB tried to stop 4WD vehicles by felling all the trees in a random and destructive manner. It worked, but didn't stop the motorbikes and after a while, us. Here is a pic taken a few months after. Previously this was a forest in all its glory, green and thriving. It had many bike trails running through it.
We dropped down the sand dune ridge and onto the wasteland, crossing over the wilderness of ruts and broken wood. To be honest, we were following trails left by motorbikes. (Thanks guys).
We climbed up the side of the tallest hill for miles around and took the team photo. Stuck at the front, I didn't see how the others got on behind me as the climb is in three steep sections with two flat bits in between (for a rest of sorts). But everyone seemed to arrive at the top closely bunched together. Now I think about it, they were probably held back by me.
We climbed further through what used to be a Gorse tunnel, until someone set fire to it. When it was flowering, you were at risk of an asthma attack just riding through it, but the flowers were so luminous that I'm sure you could ride in the dark. Now it is just scrub. It will recover.
I got my phone out to take a team photo at the highest point for miles around. But @johnc (John) insisted on taking the pic. The background is called Clipstone. John used his photographer's professional timing to ensure that photo was taken just as the wind inflated my unrestrained (no backpack) cycling top. I look like I have gained 50 pounds!
Jack, Luke, Steve, @weiran , @Sparkomatic , me (pretending to be a dirigible). John hiding behind the camera. He is so camera shy I sometimes wonder if he on a witness program!
From there we rode through dense netteles and descended down a steep trail (an old footpath) into the lakes around Vicar Water, a recreational area for the the people of Clipstone. They were out in their hundreds.
Climbing out of Vicar Water, the only person that had an off was me. And it was a good one! On a trail I had ridden many times, the bracken had grown a lot and had hidden the tree stump by the trail side. As told to me by Weiran who was right behind me, I was out of the saddle at the point that my right pedal came down on top of the stump. The whole bike rose up into the air and then stopped dead. I went fully over the bars. I can remember feeling my thighs rubbing over the bars and my feet catching on something (saddle, I suppose). I remember thinking "here comes a broken leg", but luck was with me. I went completely over and landed flat on my back with my head close to the front wheel of the bike. The thick bracken cushioned my fall and I was not even winded. Didn't even hit another stump. Lucky or what!
We returned to the Pines area and almost immediately back to the wasteland. This was where we got the welcome shower/mist. Very refreshing.
Everyone got up that steep sand dune at the end of the National Coal Board wasteland without too much trouble. To be honest that surprised me because it took me a few goes to get my new bike dialled into it. Respect guys!
Exiting the wasteland is via a descent that has slowly degraded over the years as the motorbikes have had their fun with it. Here is @Sparkomatic (Adam). If she zooms in his Mother might recognise him. He was last down as he had stopped for a pee and that gave me time to get my camera out. That dry sand over rock is like a mass of ball bearings.
From there we dropped back into the PInes area and climbed up to the bike park and Tornado Alley before climbing up to the trenches area. The trenches are a series of groundworks left behind by World War One troops who were being trained in trench warfare; how to live, fight and survive etc. They are hard to find because they are completely hidden from the those passing along the standard red, blue and green trails. Great fun though.
We got to one section of trenches that had become so overgrown with bracken that I decided it was unsafe to continue (hidden drops and sharp turns etc) and we backed out and took an alternative route. It was navigable only ten days previously!
Shortly after this, concerned about my battery life, I decided to miss out one section that was a loop of about a mile or so that came back to me. John led that section while I switched my bike off and had a break.
A little while later Luke, Jack and Steve (@kefconstruction 's mates) decided that they wanted to go to the Dirt Jump area and give that a go. We were right next to it at one point and we could have all done it if they had let onto me at the time. I hope that they managed to find it from my directions, we were more than a mile away at the time.
Making our way back towards the start point , we did the new bermy descent on the Blue trail that is loads of fun, as long as there are no slow movers in front of you! So we waited.
We discovered that just five yards of the off-piste trail has become a temporaily diverted red trail, but in the opposite direction to the way we were taking! I have no idea when that happened. The two guys we blocked were quite nice about it. We decided to see where the diversion went for future reference. Once I was on it and heading in the right direction, I recognised it immediately as an off-piste I used to do years ago. I knew that afyer it, we could take in a couple of rock drops on the red and also a few decent winding bermy descents on the Blue trail before heading back to the cafe. John and I might make that a permanent route change.
The four of us: me, @johnc @weiran @Sparkomatic got ourselves a table at the cafe and Weiran was kind enough to buy me a coffee. The four of us chatted for an hour about where we ride, bike stuff etc. I had a great time guys and I hope you did too!
Shame you couldn't make it @Davvee
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