Welcome to Digital Kent

View Synopsis TOM CHOWN reports.

Olympic mountain biking is coming to Kent. The pre-Games training camps will welcome cyclists from around the world to practice for London 2012.

"It's a fantastic accolade, it's indicative I think of the facilities we have to offer here."

"I want to get onto the World Cup circuit and eventually get selected for the commonwealths in two years hopefully and then long term's the 2012 and 2016 Olympics."

"Get out and do it, it's not for looking at, it's for doing."

Cutting through Bedgebury Forest are 9km of family and 14km of single track dedicated to cyclists.

DAVID COLE, Quench Cycles @ Bedgebury: 'It's great that teams want to come down and practice here. There's been a huge surge in interest in cycling over recent years anyway, I think people are seeing the health benefits attached to it, obviously the recent successes of the English team over the last Olympics will help to achieve that and I think then as there's a renewed interest in the Olympics and the run-up to the Olympics people are going to be interested in seeing what's happening and where and come to the area to watch and spectate.'

We for instance will be able to offer bikes for people as young as four, five and if they're younger than that then we have the trailers and tag-alongs. We've got women's bikes, standard bikes, elite bikes and also bikes for the disabled and people with disabilities so we've tried to encompass as many people as we can to attract them to site. You're out in the fresh air, in the woods, seeing nature, seeing wildlife, becoming active, getting fit, you can make it as intense as you want to so you can have a light ride or you can make it quit an intense workout.

Just up the road from Bedgebury lies West Kent's second track at Penshurst. Gravesend's Billy Whenman was part of the Great Britain Team who won the time-trial cross country version of the Tour de France this Summer.

BILLY "WIZZ" WHENMAN, Team GB: 'You get a great buzz out of when you've got the shirt on your back riding against all the other countries, it's good yeah, get a good buzz from it. Different people do different amounts of training but for myself the main training is usually done in the winter, usually 25 - 30 hours a week on the road base miles and then as you get into the season you fine tune yourself by doing harder intense efforts but shorter just to fine tune your muscles really so you've got the endurance there and also the speed and aggression that you need to be able to compete at the top level.'

Penshurst Off Road Cycling circuit was founded in the early 90s after the Great Storm decimated most of the trees. Covering 44 acres of countryside the track has played host to the International San Frontiere Championships and the British short-course downhill.

MIKE WESTPHAL, Penshurst Off Road Cycling: 'Most places you go to are either cross-country or downhill, or whatever. We have cross-country and downhill, and four-cross and jump and trials and we're trying to put a road circuit and a wheelchair racing circuit in. There's lots of kids you've seen as nervous small boys in pencil thin legs in baggy shorts and all that having a go and being sort of, you know. And yet you know seventeen years later there they are at the top of you tree you know, gonna dominate the world, this wonderful feeling and the trouble is it takes seventeen years to come to fruition, there have been others in fact one chap who raced here in 92 became seven-times World Champion, Steve Pete competed here, in fact his name is on the Kent Downhill Cup.'

BILLY "WIZZ" WHENMAN, Team GB: 'We've all got the chance, it's all on our doorstep that we can just go out and ride where all of the top competitors will be riding, it's just to be able to do that, where as other years it's been China or where you can't actually get on the circuit, ride what they're riding but now it's right here, on our doorstep, you can just go out and ride it. Next year I want to obviously the national series is one of my biggest aims, also want to get onto the world cup circuit and eventually get selected for the Commonwealths in two years hopefully, that's my short term aim and then long term's the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. In 2016 I'll be 27 so it'll be good, I'll be at my peak of my career then, fingers crossed.'