Eight months ago we brought you a Ordnance Survey map of the local mountain biking tracks, I’ve now finished work on Version 2.

New features include:

• Larger map view – The map will stretch as big as your screen goes. (Press F11 to have your browser view it full screen.)
• Routes!!! – Not many so far, but new ones aren’t to hard to add.
• ‘Services’ locations – Places that useful to MTBer visiting the area.
• Track Menu – Click to go straight to a Track.
• Other view links – As well a link to 1:25K OS map there is now a Google Map Satellite link.
• Location URL shortcuts – You can link directly to a Track, Route or Grid Reference.
• Improved IE compatibility (kind of) – The Track lines show properly, but the bottom menu doesn’t fully work, sorry.

How to use URL Shortcuts
Slightly geeky but still not too hard. The easiest is a for a grid reference, just add “?g-” then the grid reference on the end of the URL. e.g. To go to Win Hill add “?g-SK187851” (without the quotes).
For tracks add “?t-” and the track name in lower case with dashes instead of spaces.

We’d like to add more descent Routes, so let us know if you’ve got any good ones you’d like to share. If you’ve got any suggestions for improvement or new features leave a comment below. Future improvements should hopefully be; full compatibility for IE, search box for Grid Refs (maybe places & postcodes too) and easier to use URL shortcuts.

On a recent sunny July Sunday afternoon… what?, no really, there was one at the start of the month… anyway, Irwin, Matt A and I pushed up Win Hill to the Moorland Singletrack. We hadn’t ridden it for a while and I’d just got my bike back after it being at The Bike Station for a while as the forks were away being serviced. We had some good, fun runs and there was plenty of cool breeze on the push back up. Matt and I had our cameras so we did short runs of the middle section leap-frogging each other to get pictures of us all.

Afterwards we returned to the ridge and rode down to the top of Brinks Road. As we descended the top section of Brinks Road it reminded me of why people like full-sus bikes. It’s the sort of section where line choice is futile; it’s just a choice of very bumpy or extra bumpy, pedalling or braking aren’t needed either, it is just a case of hanging on and pumping small down-slopes where possible.

We ended a ride in good weather with a good BBQ, with our head chef, Shanus, making the school-boy error of turning up after the riding with some poor excuse about having to work.

09-07-05 WinHill MA+JI+JK, 7 Pictures by Matt & Jeff