Blog Post

A Wet Kitchener Trail - Section Six

Mick C • 21 April 2021

Mountain Biking Sherwood Pines

On a cold, wet and muddy Friday evening I headed over to Sherwood Pinesin Nottinghamshire to sample its only red route, the Kitchener Trail.

What a difference a bit of rain makes. Normally a flat fast flowing trail with berms and rollers, and a nice mix of rocks and roots. This time a muddy, gritty energy sapping water filled trail. The 13km took over an hour to complete and my brake pads well and truly ruined.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be breaking the root down section by section so you can see how the trail fares in the rain.

This week is the release of section six video. Check it out above.

Section six named ‘Snipers Alley’ is section with varying terrain, well as much as Sherwood Pinescan throw at you. It starts as you dive in between the trees and the fern covered floor. The trail opens with a few short twists and turns before generally heading straight. It opens out into a clearing and then a wide fast forest trail before throwing you back into wood, without realising it. It’s then back between the brambles and trees for the final twisting and turning single track before the transition to section seven. You know when the section is coming to an end when you start to see the trail open ready to cross a fire road.

Like section five the trail is made of compact dirt, tree roots and a few stones thrown in. The rain made the first and last section very wet, slippery, and muddy. The middle section on the wide Forest Trail wasn’t impacted as much and, whilst very wet, it was still fast at the start.

By this stage of the Kitchener Trail my brakes had thoroughly worn with the mud and water and braking had become noisy and very tricky. It was getting to point when I had to try to reduce the use of my brakes as much as possible. Easy to do in dry conditions but a fun situation in wet, slippery mud.

Keep an eye out for next week’s look at the Kitchener trail section seven