What is Mountain Biking?
Mountain biking covers all sorts of disciplines of off-road-riding, and is a great discipline for younger riders to take part in away from busy roads. Many of our youth riders are keen mountain bikers and regularly compete in regional competitions.
Away from racing, recreational mountain biking is huge. The UK’s network of bridleways and other legal rights of way extends for many miles. There are also a number of mountain bike trail centres within close driving distance (Rendlesham, Thetford, Tunstall, Phoenix Cycleworks and Twisted Oaks to mention just a few). They have marked, graded routes, in forestry land, with good amenities such as bike hire, bike shop, cafe and changing facilities etc.
Our nearest local Forest course is Halstead Woods on Halstead Road, Colchester, at the back of Holmwood House School. The owners are slowly making it into a dedicated MTB site.
What you’ll need to get started
A mountain bike, suitable for technical and muddy terrain.
A helmet.
Competing
For those that want to scratch their competitive itch, we are very fortunate to have two excellent race series that run every year in the Eastern Region.
Travers Bikes organise a series of six races in Potash Woods near Southend. The first race of 2024 is on 14th April – more details can be found here
These races are extremely family friendly and relaxed and would make an excellent first race experience for any youth riders.
Coaching
While we do not currently run any MTB-specific coaching sessions, the cyclocross sessions are entirely suitable for MTBs.
Contacts
We would recommend joining the Colchester Rovers Youth page on Facebook. This is often the best and easiest place to get up-to-the-minute information on what’s going on. You can also email youthcycling@colchesterrovers.org.uk with any questions you may have.