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Chopwell Woods is a Forestry Commission clump of trees in County Durham, a few miles South-West of Newcastle. It's always been popular with ramblers and horse riders, but over the last few years has grown in stature locally as a very usable little bike trail centre. Thanks largely to the efforts of the North East Freeriders there is a neat downhill route which seems to change weekly (and can take you by surprise!) and several singletracks with man-made jumps and berms, and some rocky and rooty sections by the golf course. The club is currently constructing some North Shore stuff for the tired-of-living amongst you.

We go there once or twice a month for a leap about and then generally do flat rides in between up and down the River Tyne or the Derwent Walk to Consett and the Waskerley Way beyond.

David attacking the 20 foot tabletop in Chopwell's Downhill run.

Saturday and Sunday 25th and 26th June 2005

On Saturday Jason and Terry made an unscheduled trip to Chopwell Woods at 2.00pm
when they found a space in their social calendars. After sampling some of the usual
trails they headed into the trees on the western edge of the forest near Blackhall
Mill and discovered a few more reasonable singletrack rides. Then it was back to
the bottom end of Chopwell where there are a couple of evil drops onto the Red
Trail. We did about 3 loops of each drop and apart from one excursion by the Gollum
on drop 2 it was a great afternoon's exercise.

The very next day we were back there again at 1.30pm in blazing sunshine to repeat
the exercise with the relatively rare addition of David for company, uninjured for
a change after his Saturday cricket match. From the car park we went north towards
High Spen and then onto one of our favourite bits of singletrack, what we call the
Roots Run. Half way down there's a bog across the trail. It was here that we
encountered what looked like Rambler Man, complete with SLR camera slung around his
neck. He got quite irate at poor Jason who was trying to unglue his Coiler from the
black sticky mess and finally just rode away with a "hmmph" sort of reaction. David
and I both stopped and I tried to pacify the nice gentleman who said we shouldn't
be there. I apologised and told him we weren't aware that we were on a footpath. He
gradually calmed down and almost accepted my argument that if the trail was not
marked "No Cycling", as quite a few are, then it was Game On for us. I also tried
to explain that the Forestry Commission had brought mountain bikers into Chopwell
Woods and actually assisted in the building of a proper trail. I told him that we
wouldn't deliberately ride on Public Footpaths. (not STRICTLY true, as I'll ride on
ANY footpath - including roadside proper ones if the cars are getting too close for
comfort). This pacified him quite a bit and he finally waved us on willingly. I
completely understand his position and I'm trying to find out just what we can and
cannot ride on in these woods. If we were OK, however, I'll be a wee bit miffed
that he was trying to STOP us following our chosen hobby when we wouldn't try to do
the reverse. After all, we're just pedestrians who've found a faster way.

After a run on the downhill track we continued down to where we'd done the drops
yesterday and blow me if the Golly didn't stuff up again, over the handlebars at
exactly the same spot!   Bit less pain this time and more hysterical laughter as
David rode by. We did a couple or three circulations again then the long ridge down to the river and the almost sheer drop at the finish. Finally we played for half an hour on the manmade log jumps and gaps out the bottom end in Lintzford Woods where David showed us how to forget fear of dying, although Jason and I stuck to the more sensible looking obstacles. My Coiler's bigger than yours!   Super riding and this time not quite so heavy as the humidity was down and there was a cool breeze blowing.

Watch this space for the news on access rights as soon as I discover them.

here are a few short vids of this outing... Jay1    Dav1    Gol1    Jay&Dav    Dav2     Gol2    David Flies Log Gap Two  

Sunday 3rd July saw us hit Chopwell Woods again. Apologies to anyone who wanted a linkup - I couldn't check e-mails this weekend because of work going on at the house.

Jason's Triathlete buddy Andy managed to grab a day off work, and we put him on Golly's "spare" Barracuda. As well as 5.5" of rear travel with a RockShox Sid Air Shock, this now has Marzocchi Z1 5" Drop Off forks at the front with LX gears, Truvativ chainset and Hayes disc brakes, so it's a decent little machine. This enabled Andy to enjoy the trails a bit more but he's not resting on his laurels and has ordered a Specialized Epic, due this week some time! John was also out on strange machinery, taking up the missing David's (on holiday) offer of a try on his Kona Coiler Dee Lux.

We left the Rock Dwellers hole about 11.00 and reached Chopwell half an hour later. Unloading the bikes was a struggle, as the Barracuda, which was hanging on the carrier last, got tangled up with the Bear and silly old Gollum yanked it away as hard as he could. Fifteen minutes later on the first decent downhill blast he realised exactly what silly means, as there was no rear braking from the 205mm Hayes HFX-9. Closer inspection revealed hydraulic oil all over the place (at the top of the Downhill Run!) and a split hydraulic hose. A prick had done it. I thought it was sliding a lot coming down the Rooty Run! Strangely enough, and co-incidentally both Jasons' and Davids' rear HFX's are pulling back to the handlebars, but that's air in the system or pad wear, not an old tosser dragging their brake lines over massive pedal pins.

Anyway, that was a great excuse to take things a bit slower than normal but it still caused a few scares and one decent face-down fall down a fern covered hillside. We showed Andy the Downhill next, then our four-stage run from the Bomb Hole. John was really lapping up the Coiler and it wasn't long before he was comparing it very favourably to his Saracen. His exploits, riding style and speed have now reached the point where he's going to break it unless he passes it down the line to wife or daughter and gets something meaner.

Jason plucked up the courage to tackle the first log gap at the far end of the woods that David did last Sunday, and here's the proof:

Jason creams the Log Gap

Sunday 14th August.

David, John and Terry made the short trip for what was a shortened session in pretty warm weather. We attempted to find the new stuff Jason and the Gollum had come across a few weeks ago but, whadya know, we got a bit off the beaten track (again). "You seriously want us to go down there?"...

Thank God that's over!

We stopped in more familiar territory for a lunch break where John and David tried their luck at hatching something...  I sat down at the foot of that tree and discovered painfully next day that ants easily bite through Lycra!

Sunday 22nd January 2006    Sunday 23rd April 2006