Suburban singletrack - north London/Herts

[Chris71]

Where is the most surprising place you've found decent riding?

I'm not talking about urban trials, but normal trails.

I spent yesterday exlporing the area around Enfield in North London. My missus lives there and in the not too distant future I might end up joining her, but even compared to suburban Chelmsford it's a lot more built up and I thought the chances of finding anywhere to ride where zilch.

There is Trent park, where the trails (often technically footpaths) are either massively overcrowded or overgrown or both and the neighbouring Hadley common which is pretty much the same. The other day I found 'Hilly Fields country park' even closer on the outskirts of Enfield. It's still the same sort of thing, again not huge and no significant graidents, but this one has a warren of interconnecting narrow twisty singletrack along with some all weather bridleways going round the perimeter. I saw the occasional horse rider, but virtually no walkers. You can probably cover every single trail in an hour, but it's an awful lot better than anything else I've found within cycling distance of a tube station. I even got airbourne a few times

Ok, apart from Epping Forest, I haven't tried there yet!

[Organic Doner]

Chris, try taking a drive up to London Colney and starting on the bridleways from there. Its starts off from Shenley Lane and carries on under the M25 to Radlett and all the way to Watford. Easy ride you can do at whatever pace you want. Its not exactly challenging but a nice, quiet, pleasant ride away from traffic.

[Chris71]

......will do.

Went out to the same place again last night. There's nothing especially difficult, but I discovered another couple of bits of singletrack. I'm thinking it'll be much more challenging in a couple of weeks time after work with some lights