just got back from riding malvern hills ,ridng down the man made steps at british camp was a real blast
Sounds ace, I grew up in view of the Malverns but thought them a very boring place you got dragged to on a sunday afternoon. Now a little older, i’m jealous not to be around there 
They were my local stomping ground a few years back; my house was pretty much as far up on the hills as you could get…
Loads of fantastic riding, but by 'eck those climbs were steep and long…
im planning to try to get up the malverns about once a week(is there anyone up for for a meet ?) ,i used to mountain bike on the malverns but, my muni is way more fun
I’m usually to be found riding my uni on the Malverns on Sunday mornings, but the last few weeks I’ve been very busy because I’ve just moved to…Malvern.
The flat we’ve just bought needed quite a bit of work, so I’ll be out of action for a few more weeks, and then out of condition when I do get back to riding.
I’ve never wridden those steps as:
1 - I’m pretty sure I couldn’t
2 - I try to stick to the bridleways where riding is allowed and I know those steps are not. Of course it all depends on when you’re up there, but on Sunday mornings it can be pretty busy so I find it’s best to stick to where you’re meant to be as it avoids arguments.
i will be about most saturdays and sundays usually kite buggying at kempsey at weekends , im not very fit at the moment ,it would be great to ride with some one up there into uni.
ridden all over the malverns for most of my life never realised it wasnt really allowed, normally going to fast to listen to some old coffin dodger trying to tell me off for having some fun lol
I used to ride pretty much everywhere… discretion was of more use than a somewhat arbitrary classification (the trail down to the clock tower is a bridleway… I can barely get a bike down that, I’ve never managed it on a unicycle and I’d like to see anyone try it on a horse!). Bank holidays and weekends involved sticking to the quiet bits; damp days or evenings it was all fair game…
I found everyone got as far as saying “What on earth…?” but never managed the “…are you riding on this footpath for?”
Phil
phil, is skull valley the part you have described ?
i have always had positive replies from members of public on malvern when im on my uni,
used to upset few people going downhill to fast on my mtb
52.120696938809964 -2.33659029006958 google map position of clock tower
I’ve never heard the name Skull Valley before. What I called the “clock tower descent” goes down from between North Hill and End Hill, over the covered reservoir and ends up between the Tank Quarry and North Quarry car parks. It’s a bit mental, involving lots of rocks, steep bits and the Steps of Doom. I used to live near the clock tower, and many is the time I ended up doing various bits of it face first…
Biking on the Malverns certainly requires more responsibility than muni-ing does as it’s so busy and not all the paths are bridleways, especially as you go further south. I took the approach that it was more sensible to ride a well surfaced, empty footpath than a busy, muddy bridleway.
The fact that there isn’t a single bridleway on the Herefordshire side of the border even though many of the trails on the hills were established by Victorian horse riders says a lot about how a trail ends up as a bridleway or a footpath - it’s got very little to do with the trail on the ground.
Phil
going to give it a try this weekend ,been looking for a challenge ,i will get some pics up
That’s pretty much my approach as well. I just like to know when I’m within the rules and when not in case I am challenged.
Once a Warden stopped me and said. politely, that I shouldn’t be riding as we were on a footpath. I was pretty certain it was a bridleway, and when he got his maps out to check it turned out I was right.
But as you point out Phil, Hereford side has no bridleways even when some of the tracks were built as carriageways or roads to quarries, they are now designated as footpaths.
I’m sure there was a bridleway somewhere between Great Malvern and the river Severn that was actually impossible to get to legally as it only connects to footpaths at both ends, but I can’t find it on the map…
warden
what exactly can a warden do if im unicycling in the wrong place ?
absolutely nothing
Erm, an individual warden might not be able to do much, but the groups they report to directly or indirectly - the Conservators, the council, other interest groups, the police, the public at large - could definitely do things you wouldn’t want.
While I’m all for trying to subvert wardens into admitting that actually cheeky riding is sometimes the responsible thing to do (try it, it’s good fun), winding them up the wrong way can only damage the cause.
Phil
going to malvern saturday afternoon or sunday to play on my muni , (weather dependant) will try to stay on bridleways but dont have an ordance survey map or gps so this might prove a bit tricky
if i spot a warden i will quickly change direction or explain that it isnt a unicycle ,but infact a walking aid
Apologies for thread resurrection, but I’ve just learnt to ride in the Malvern area, and would love to find somebody to ride with. Hoping maybe some of the original posters might get a notification of a new post?
I should point out I’m a real muni novice, and when I tried recently found I was walking up pretty much everything (I can ride down some stuff - though wouldn’t even go near the clock tower descent mentioned earlier - like Phil, I find it quite a challenge on a bike). Malverns are far from ideal for a muni!