The First Ride of the New Year

Its the last day of the holidays and back to work tomorrow. The weather is better than yesterday and we need to get fit for out mountain biking weekend at Plas Y Brenin. So, we ventured out on the Mountain Bikes around Christmas Common, near Stokenchurch.

The full map of the route can be found on Trailzilla and the photos are on my Flickr site.

We parked the van at the car park at the top of Watlington Hill (SU710 935) and headedSouth East on the Bikes to Christmas Common itself, before turning left towards the M40. We had intended to park at the car park on this road (SU726 955) but there is a 6′ 6″ height limit and we could not get the van in. If you have an ordinary car then there should be no problem.

Just before the bridge that crosses the M40 we took the bridleway to the right. This runs parallel to the road before dropping down into  Hailey Wood. The first section was quite slippery but it gets better as you go down. We followed the bridleway all the way to Wellground Farm – a fantastic bit of downhill. There is a bit of a road section but the bridleway carries straight on when the road turns sharp right.

We kept straight on, coming out at the spot height (128m – SU742 932). From here we took the bridleway that leads to Northend. The first section of this is very very steep and very wet but it does eventually meet a tarmact track which is easier to follow into Northend. Turning right we followed the road through Northend until we came to the wooden signpost on the left indicating a permissive bridleway.

This leads down past Launders farm and across a very flinty and slippery field before entering a wood. The trail gets easier in the wood and very soon we got to the junction with the Oxfordshire way. We turned left and followed the bridleway down through the woods and out past Turville Park Farm. About 1km further on the path becomes a track and the going gets easier.

We followed the track all the way to the road, where we turned right to meet the B480 at Whitepond Farm. From here we turned right and followed the B480 for about 300m. As the road carried on round to the left we went straight on up the permissive bridleway that leads to Whitehill Shaw and then to Hollandridge Farm where it becomes Hollandridge Lane.

With a bit more hard slog and a final effort this leads back to Christmas Common, from where the car park is easily reached.

In total about 19.6km (12.25m) over the course of 3.5 hours or so. Quite hard work due to the wet and slippery conditions, especially on the steep up hill sections and where the mud was particularly deep.