Mountain Biking in Croft Woods

Croft Woods is one of the glorious wooded open spaces very close to Old Town, not to be confused with Great Copse, the ancient woodland near Croft Sports centre. The recent interest I have in Croft Woods is due to the South Swindon Parish Green Corridor Walk going through there between the Coate Water section and Wichelstowe. It's important to keep the walkers through the woods separate from the Croft Trail, a biking route with a huge selection of tracks through the woods. Councillor Jane Milner-Barry and I met with Justin Wilkinson, trail manager and Steffan James, chair of the mountain biking club recently, and were taken round some of the tracks which they have built and maintain. The first photo is of part of a challenging bit of track, with twists and turns. I thought I'd start with this one because it was very impressive, and not to be ridden unless you are a confident rider. The rest of the tracks on the Croft Trail are covered in gravel, so if you're walking on a gravel track, you are encroaching on the bike track and shouldn't be doing so!

Here are from the left, Justin, Steffan and Jane beside the end of a track and depicting the website address. If you click on the link, you get a good idea about the club.

I'm going to add a couple more photos of the track:

above it looks quite banked and below like corrugated cardboard.

Near the start of the track, which starts quite near the car park opposite the entrance to nationwide, there's a noticeboard which was probably more useful before websites were so commonly used for sharing information.

This is a bit of a test for me to remember the significance of the colours, this signage indicates you're on the cycle track, hence the bicycle and gravel path, if you turn left, you're on a blue route which is easier than going straight ahead which is a red route. Black is the hardest, and there aren't any black routes in the woods.

Why is Justin walking around the woods with a black bag, and why is he wearing gloves? I think you may have guessed correctly, he was picking up litter as we walked along, mostly plastic bottles of water or other drinks.

Why is more litter being dropped just now? The Parish will be adding more bins to the car park, but I'd love to find the solution to litter dropping.

Below a general photo showing how lovely Croft Woods are

We then took a bit of a detour past the pond where bullrushes are flowering

and I even managed a photo of a peacock butterfly

Thank you once again Steffan and Justin for giving up your time to show us round and explain the Croft Trail which it generously says on the website is:
'Managed by MB Swindon, ridden by everyone'
You will also get a good idea of the club by looking on their Facebook page