A Little More Detail
We will collect you from Bristol Temple Meads station before heading off for a brilliant week on our home turf; expect to be served up the absolute finest riding available! If there are other riders to wait for you can easily head into the city which is one of the best in the UK for shopping, and full of great places to eat and drink – not to mention full of bike shops – and we'll look after your bags and bike. Our base for the week is the market town of Tiverton in the heart of Devon – ideally positioned for striking out to the numerous riding areas on offer here. Over the course of the week you will be riding for at least 5 days - at all times fully guided by our fully qualified and helpful staff.
Accommodation is in a great quality hotel near the town centre, and features recently updated en-suite rooms, a fantastic restaraunt, bar and free wifi access.
Positioned on the river Exe, Tiverton is a traditional market town, and has an excellent range of bars, restaurants shops and a nightclub. It's also only a quick journey into the heart of Exeter, a vibrant city well-known for its rich history and bustling nightlife.
On your first day we'll head out to the northernmost point of the week's riding, the rolling Mendip hills, which burst out of the Somerset levels to the south of Bristol. The trails can be demanding at times, with long climbs & descents on well-hidden, twisting technical trails, such as "Badger's Arse" – a real local's only classic singletrack descent which speeds through the trees, down into the famous Cheddar Gorge, towards cakes & tea.
What To Expect
We will also spend a couple of days riding with you around the stomping ground of our youth – Dartmoor is still one of our favourite places to be on a bike. Forget the repetitively published routes – we know exactly where to find the very richest reserves of singletrack fun in this amazing National Park. We concentrate on the fringes of the southern moor in particular, where our classic ride "Local's Only" will take in some very big climbs in order to reach one of our most loved (and hardest to find!) descents in the world! It may "only" drop 300m, but it takes 5km and about 15 minutes to do so, on everything from open moorland to sunken lanes dotted with babyhead boulders, and culminates in one of the fastest, sweeping rollercoaster sections of natural singletrack we know. The ride finishes with a fabulous dive into the heavily wooded moor-edge where natural switchbacks drop you deep into the steep-sided river valleys.
We'll also treat you to a day of delights in the Quantocks – regularly voted as being one of the very top places in the UK for riding, where moorland singletracks with sea-views plunge you into dark wooded coombes on highly technical, rooty and rocky trails. The riding here is so good it feels like it was designed for mountain biking – it's a natural trail centre!
Last, but by no means least, Exmoor is our other favourite place to ride – and the trails really are very special indeed – there's lots of absolutely huge descents to be had – with a maximum elevation of over 500m there are many trails here which drop to sea level – and our "Exmoor Beast" ride will give you of 1300m of climbing and descending on the area's exquisite and flowing singletrack – including a very special final descent with a sea view, which switchbacks though thick woods right down to the beach!
