Our favourite trail got the name 'six eggs' after one of the usual suspects ate six fried eggs before riding and then rode ridiculously fast all the way.
Six eggs was an epic stealth trail building mission. Over 5 years we cut and dug our way through some of the most rugged terrain the area has to offer.
Many places were extremely overgrown and progress was slow, sometimes only a few metres of trail would appear from two or more people working for an afternoon.
Often we worked in the dark, bad weather and strong winds to avoid being disturbed by randoms. For a long time it was a rugged walkway that stopped abruptly in the middle of nowhere.
To keep ourselves on target we used osmand+ (open street map's navigation app) and made many waypoints. We picked slowly through the dense foliage to find the desired route, made waypoints to aim for, then backtracked and slowly worked our way towards the targets, building a surface for the trail as we went.
Digging to make a rideable surface often immediately exposed large chalk lumps, with hardly any soil in some areas. Digging was hard work but worth the effort in the end.
We often arrived to find a fallen tree in the way, or that huge fallen branches were hidden in large patches of nettles and brambles.
The amount of tool swapping needed to make any sort of progress had to be seen to be believed.
Six eggs is now a single-track ride with lots of technical sections. It starts with a long descent down steps and winding single-track before it forks off onto the section we built. We avoided a long flat section of the existing path and made new trails into the depths of the woods. Instead, the new trail traverses the foot of the cliffs and gets the most out of the rugged terrain while avoiding all the dips with steps that litter the old walking route the trail runs approximately parallel with.
We cut up many fallen trees, carved trail into slopes we had trouble staying standing on, hauled rocks out of the way and had a few encounters with the wildlife including adders.
A few huge roots, tree stumps and branches that grow along the ground became parts of jumps.
Buddleia was everywhere. We cut a lot of branches of buddleia...
There are some small jumps, a large gap jump which is now so old it needs some TLC and plenty of technical descents. Some of the largest jumps are also the most publicly placed on the trail. Because it is built over chalky ground, the effect is a great path marker. All the chalk lumps pile at the side of the trail and give a nice white border.
We have had to dig in to create a surface to traverse steep slopes, even crossing an old landslide. This area was so deeply covered in brambles that they reached well above head height and progress was very slow. This area needs frequent clearing.
The limited space we had to build in meant that we made the best use of the terrain we were able, sections of climb compressed into some twisty paths in order to get back to a decent height to descend again.
When we finally met up with the existing route in a good location, we stopped building new trail over fresh ground and switched to maintaining the trail we had created.
There's a never ending list of jobs to keep the trail passable at a decent speed, but it seems that our route is preferred by some of the walkers as well as being regarded as "the difficult route" by some XC cyclists we met.
Because the trail passes so many large trees, large deadfall is common. We plan to remove some of the more dangerous looking dead branches, eg all those which will fall onto landings and blind corners. All things considered, we're taking better care of the trail and trees than the people tasked with keeping the walking route clear. :-D
While we've been private about make this trail and done our best to not make people aware of the new trail, we must have confused some local walkers with blasts of chainsaw, hedge trimmer and laughing.
Six eggs has been a massive effort and also hugely enjoyable to construct, we hope that gradually more people are brave enough to try riding our crazy trails.
