Ashton Court + 50 Acre Wood + Leigh Woods

This ride was intended as a recce of the Bristol Oktoberfest race route in Ashton Court. We also planned on visiting 50 Acre Wood and Leigh Woods. See Bristol Trails Group for more information.

We met at 10:31 in the golf course car park. It was uncharacteristically warm; the place normally has a bleak wind blowing over it.

Our first lap of the route was a slow affair with several domestic disputes over the exact route. We eventually realised that the map was a bit approximate. The trails themselves were a lot more fun than I expected, providing a lot of rooty single track. The section down by the quarry was as good as ever.

Our second lap was done as a bit more of a race and we mananged to do it in about 30 minutes.

June route

Oktoberfest route

Comparison of height profiles for 2009/2010 Bikefest and 2010 Oktoberfest.

We then followed a special route that I’d devised, loosely based on what I remembered from riding the trails regularly in the early 2000s. This started with 50 acre wood, then took in Yew Tree plantation and down the steep hill into Fish Pond wood. People were enjoying the steep bit so much that we walked back up and did it again. Riding round to the pond provided a lot of entertainment too. We then followed the road into the back end of Leigh woods and did a few steep bits in there. We finished off with a totally random route following singletrack through the trees until we reached the main entrance of the woods. Then we hopped over the wall back into Ashton Court and back to the car park.

View Bikefest Ashton Court + 50 Acre + Leigh Woods in a larger map

I’d forgotten how good the riding was in Leigh Woods. There’s some really challenging unofficial single track going down to the Avon, plus a lot of uncharted trail going through the trees.

We finished the day off with a visit to the Nova Scotia inn for some premium cider and beer.