southerndownhill.com - Forum

Hey i am hoping to take a trip to the kona dark side, is it worth taking the trip ?
cheers
mike

I put a post up about this a about 2 months ago. searching always helps. where do you live?

If your on a DH bike then no, i sturggled on a singlespeed hardtail.
It was pretty tricky as well, uphill start dosent do it any favours either.

Not really my kinda thing, sure other people will enjoy it, only thing i enjoyed was the gap drop.

I have ridden it on a DH rig. Its wicked. About as tech as you will get this side of the Atlantic. Only real problem is the location. On a DH rig, the 3000 mile cross country ride to get to the trail head is a bit of a killer ;D

Me and a few of my mates went there in October with the intention of riding North Shore, first of all it is a hell of a ride from the car-park by the bike shop and secondly it is not really that good.
The wood is mega slippy in the first section, at the most 1ft wide with no chicken wire for grip. Then when you get into the tree section, it is slightly covered, but the turns are so tight you cannot negotiate them on a freeride bike.
We continued on till we got to the large section on the hill which is where trees have been chopped down in order for the trail to happen. The actual incline to ride the trail is stupid, you need a gear ratio capable enough of producing enough torque to get up the hill as it is near impossible on a normal mtb ratio - in the end we gave up.
The best section by far has to be the Kona drop, we sessioned this for almost two hours, as it is quite immune to the rain we encounted and there are two little jumps after it and a rock garden near by.
I enjoyed it in Mabie, but to be honest it was a let down, we came from Liverpool and basically all we rode was the Kona drop!
Stay/call in at The Criffel Inn the food is lovely and Clive Firth, the resident MTBer is the coolest and soundest guy you are ever likely to meet - watch out for the newsagent guy next to the Inn though coz he is a tw*t!!!

I cant understand all these people who whinge about Mabie. It is hard. Get over it.

I dont moan about it, it was fun, just bummed cant ride it in the wet due to no means of traction. esher n places like that have either chicken wire or skateboard grip stuff. if the FC put some grip down it would b a killer course!

I stay in edinburgh but i am going out that way for 4 days with a friend to session Ae forest dh track and the kona dark side

well i couldnt get up the start climb but that was it yeh there is no chicken wire so what get over it and i rode 99% of it with a 40t chainring on full on dh bike all u got to do is carry your speed oh and when i went it was foggy and icey which made the logs death to ride but stil fun

cause its tech and hard dont mean its crap its a challenge better than being easy and boring