[Closed] Cannock Gravel Ride

Blue route is 12 miles or so.

Start at Milford and take the track in, do a loop of the blue and then back again, all gravel.

There is loads up on the top that is mostly gravel as well nearer Milford.

take a day and go and get lost.

I can't help on the gpx front, but would be more than happy to meet up and make sure you don't get lost. I can only really do mid-week, and not Wednesdays, though, but if that is feasible then drop me a line.

There is, as you might imagine, a huge amount of potential routes, but the blue as mentioned ^above is as good a place to start as any. Options to extend it depend a bit on where you'd intend to park up and start - there are plenty of free parking options, but you might want the higher security of some of the pay and display places for example - and whether to end with a downhill or uphill. If you parked up here*, you could go up the old railway cutting to its end, turn left and keep going straight (right at the fork but its more obviously straight) to pick up the blue at the Stepping Stones. Once you've dropped down into Sherbrook Valley on the blue you could then either keep following it to Stepping Stones and retrace your steps,  or pick it up as the 'Heart of England Way' and carry on up to the Katyn Memorial - tea and cake @ Springslade Lodge - on to Brocton Coppice, then a lovely down and down and down what was the old railway line back through the cutting to where you started.

I am not particularly fast, or indeed fit, so you'd have to cut me some slack if you take me up on the offer, but the offer is there if you fancy it.

*the ^'here' was hyperlinked to nowhere - it's <iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!4v1542586990869!6m8!1m7!1skKsnVBjFsXcHTSAiDMxXqg!2m2!1d52.78445213435883!2d-2.041355603732343!3f120.01886399739837!4f-5.070494540794272!5f1.9587109090973311" width="600" height="450" frameborder="0" style="border:0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

here?

Ok i give up - the car park is called 'The Cutting' and is just after the Sister Dora turn to the left on the Milford to Brocton Road

some of the climbs on follow the dog and monkey are easily doable on a cx but not so much the descents

I dunno I've seen some guys on cx bikes going pretty well on the monkey. devils staircase at the sharp right hander might be dodgy but i think the rest is doable just at slightly less than mtb speeds.

cheers @vazaha. I am going to struggle with mid weeks ride but thanks for the offer. I have found the car park on the maps and traced some of the route you have suggested so will look into that in some more detail.

@rocketdog. I was thinking about that this morning. I think I would struggle with the stegosaurus, devils staircase and tom, dick and harry but other than that thinking about it the rest is pretty rideable. Tom, dick and harry is easy to miss as you carry along the path at the top but not sure about the other two features.

I think Monkey would be hard work on gravel bike. Plenty of fire roads and easy singletrack for gravel bike on Cannock Chase. I don’t have gpx but just get map and you will be ok.

Milford is good starting point. Marquis Drive would be good too as you are right in the middle of Chase.

Have a look and see if you can find the 2016 Rapha Prestige route. Started from Hasbean Coffee and looped 80k around the Chase. Easy parking at the weekend as the Industrial Estate is quiet.

Oh, found the GPX!

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/17604002

I normally ride from my house out to milford, follow the single track from milford through to Stepping Stones and then do a loop of the blue route. I've not been on the dog in a while but most of that would be doable on the gravel bike too - just the new steg and the two foot drop whose name escapes me would make me pause (if the drop is even still there, it's been a couple of years). There's a lot more gravel between the blue route and Brocton but I've only done that on the mountain bike and in the dark as connectors for other trails so can't really tell you much about them.

Once you cross the road to monkey side there's loads more gravel trails, you can also ride out to shoal hill, just crossing a few roads.