Englishcombe
Englishcombe a pretty village south east of Bath, this ride shares a significant amount with the Two Tunnels ride. Taking in a number of the finest hills North East Somerset has to offer. The ride although titled Englishcombe doesn’t actually start there, only because there isn’t a pub and this being a Wednesday night ride, needs a pub.
Technical climb
Whilst there is a significant amount of climbing on the ride around 600m, a lot of it is fairly decent tracks and road with a couple of exceptions. The first being a particularly technical track ascent, at some point this must have been a made up road as you can still see the tarmac, although where the surface has eroded it has left steps and gullies with rocks and gravel. the second tricky climb is loose gravel and getting traction is the issue, both of these climbs get even more tricky in the wet.
While this ride gets very wet in the winter is is still rideable the climbs get trickier and the descents have a greater volume of water flowing down them and there is one particularly boggy section.
Rocky descents
We shouldn’t get hung up on the climbs as there are some truly cracking descents. There are a couple of rocky descents that have water flowing down them even in the hight of summer, don’t let this put you off. The final decent is particularly fun a narrow heavily wooded section with steps, drops and gullies to contend with. This is even more interesting when you are chasing the failing light and ride down it with no lights.
I have to say that riding a technical descent by feel does add a new element to the ride and whilst probably not recommended to do when truly dark in late dusk it was quite entertaining. Whilst the final descent is the best of them, the other descents on the ride are not left wanting all of a variety of rocky, gravelly often wet all of them really do reward the climbs. There are even a couple of open field let the brakes off and run sections, just remember to stop for the road.
The pub
Finally this ride is part of the Wednesday night MTB club series so again finishes with a pub, this time its the Wheatsheaf in Combe Hay
Englishcombe route
| Distance | 26km |
| Time | 1.5-2.5hrs |
| Climbing | 590m |
| Starting location | Combe Hay |
| Pubs, cafes | The Wheatsheaf |
| Parking | Street / Pub car park |
| Route | View route on Strava |
| Photos | View Photos on Flickr |
| Videos | View Videos on YouTube |
