Forest of dean off piste

My apologies typo I meant Forest of Dean!

The easiest 'off-piste' is basically 5 minutes down the path from the trail centre, heading towards Y2K and Elephant Man, you'll find it easily enough if you just keep going along that path from the practice area at Cannop to Y2K, then across the road.

There's loads of the stuff about, you can search the likes of Strava to get more exact locations.

FoD has a lot of off-piste though, and for most it's like fight club, you don't talk about it, but reality is that there are several areas around that cover all levels of abilities, so best thing to ask is what off-piste is around that's good for your group, and where are you going to be located for that couple of days, is it Coleford, Lydney, Parkend?

I recommend Mallards Pike. Youtube & Strava will give you an idea of where to head.

Mallards Pike and Dowies areas both have stacks of trails for verifying abilities.

Argees plan is good for sure. Spent a lot of time there last week

Personally I prefer Dowie's/Parkend as it suits my skills better

Some of it used to be on Trailforks but it’s all been removed now. If you head out of the trail centre past the skills area along the fireroad there are 2 official enduro runs - Y2K and Elephant man. I tend to think the uplift isn’t really worth it as the push up / ride up the fireroad isn’t too bad and the off piste has some better stuff if you like either steep tech stuff or more mellow flow stuff.

I think you can hire a guide for the day that might take you off piste - I’d say that’s a better investment than a few of you paying for uplift there.

If I were going to do an uplift day round there I’d go to Black Mountain Cycle Centre or a bit further on to Bike Park Wales.

Mmm, I think the uplift's well worth it tbh, I did the pushup/ride up a few times there and it made for a very different day. I guess I'm happier throwing away height when I didn't earn it! But BMCC (just renamed to Dirt Farm) is absolutely fantastic. Not better, just very different. I always think we'll go and explore dowies or maybe risca or something but we always end up on the uplifts.

Y2K is easy ish to find. I say ish, because there's trails and paths absolutely bloody everywhere and it's not easy to know when you're on the right one. We got a bit lost, and I think we eventually found it by mistake. Once you've been there it's easy but the first time's a bit like finding the right line at innerleithen, it's more about finding too much

@northwind

I always think we’ll go and explore dowies or maybe risca or something but we always end up on the uplifts.

You’re missing out on Risca - very different riding to FOD DH trails. Much longer and steeper and some variety in there. Loads of more difficult stuff. I really like Cwmcarn / Risca.

Dowies is quite mellow mostly from what I’ve seen so far - apart from one techier thing you had to climb over a barbed wire fence to get too 🙈

Mallards was great the one time I’ve been there but there’s been forestry works so not sure which bits are or aren’t still there.

One other area in FOD I’ve been introduced to recently is the best bit I reckon but people don’t like to advertise it so I won’t mention it.

One other area in FOD I’ve been introduced to recently is the best bit I reckon but people don’t like to advertise it so I won’t mention it.

Go on, you can't keep it as a secret 😁

If you aren't sure of the area, as stated before, the standard Off-Piste is the easiest to find as it's basically down one path from the centre, you keep going and on the way to the uphill path to the top, you'll see all the bike tyre imprints at the exits to some of the runs, it also covers nice easy trails, up to some biggish features on some, there's trails all over that bit, over a dozen and you can have a real techy one with a couple of decent gap jumps, to a nice flowy run top to bottom all in the same area.

Personally, Dowies is my favourite, just because it's been there over 20 years since i started going to FoD, you have Dowies, Bluebells, Shutcastle and so on all around, a lot of the runs are smooth and nice, there are some harder ones, but you'd need a guide to keep you right, was there today in fact, running really well and everything was looking good!

Rushmere campsite is where we are staying it’s near coleford, thanks for all the advice keep it coming please

https://www.maryroseyoung.com/

So, head to this place.

Then look over the other side of the road, you'll see a layby where vans are...

Go through the gate and follow it up to the trail on the right up the hill.

As it forks out, you can pick either the left or the right, they sort of meet in the middle again higher up. Take the left past the log stacks, you'll see a cracking trail on the left just after the logs.... but stay on the fireroad and go to the next right, between the 2 rocks.... go up almost to the top and take the last trail on the right, there's 4-5 trails off there.

Pretty much all day every day you'll see people riding there to ask.

Strava heatmaps is a good way to start.

Lot of felling up by the Lawn mover trails great views now though you must not mention St------ so I wont.

Lot of felling up by the Lawn mover trails great views now though you must not mention St—— so I wont.

St Briavels?

There's plenty of steep gnar at Dowies, I reckon there's a a full day's riding between Dowies, Bluebell and Shutcastle with easy parking at Parkend plus the bike cafe and pub.

There’s plenty of steep gnar at Dowies, I reckon there’s a a full day’s riding between Dowies, Bluebell and Shutcastle with easy parking at Parkend plus the bike cafe and pub.

Yeah, probably need a bit of a guide to get to Shutcastle, but all the trails are running well, even the bit that's been hacked still has the tracks mostly running, the steep stuff up the back end running to the road is pretty much all abilities, and those carved runs in the hillside are fun just to try and stay upright whilst going round and sliding all over the corners. Dowies runs are just fun and the climb back up isn't horrific!

If you're at Rushmere then Staunton is the closest stuff, but it's all over that place, not as easy to find and central as Dowies, you can cycle from Rushmere to Dowies, it's about 1.5 miles, you can ride through Coleford, then into the woods next to nagshead and even head down a track called loamalicious to get to the road, and then over it to Dowies, or just drive there and park up at the place Weeksy mentions (yellow sided building).

Anyone up for FoD ride soon then, perhaps Staunton?

Always.

I’m happy to show people around, if I’m about when people are planning to do it.

If we're being pedantic the steep stuff near dowies isn't called dowies, it's fetter hill. If you ask someone to show you dowies you won't get the steep stuff on the other part of the hill.

Best thing with fod off piste is to know someone who's willing to show you around. There is an unbelievable amount of amazing riding all over the forest that most people who visit the trail centre don't know about, but it's best if it's kept that way if I'm being honest.

The perks of being a local is that I've had the time to explore pretty much every bit of it with the help of riding buddies.

Aye, i'm finding I'm riding new shit every week and much preferring the local guide option.

Certainly beats riding the same trail week in week out in Heb/Peaks etc.

Will check what days look good and get a date penned perhaps?

Yeah, Fetter Hill is somewhere i tend not to mention outside of group rides as folk ride those old quarry runs that are fenced off, which the FC do not like, it's the same with other places that are a little more sensitive with locals, FC, etc.

For any groups going with little knowledge of the area, Dowies as mentioned, or 'Wastelands/FoD Off-Piste/stoneworks/stoneyard' stuff are the easiest to find with many different runs located close together.

Best thing i would say is to give Youtube a check, look at those two and choose what suits you best, search for videos on them, for me this video from last month shows some of the harder stuff at wastelands (the off-piste across the road from Y2K)

for Dowies, there are loads, same with Shutcastle and Fetter, this one gives some bits of the main dowies runs, and a couple of the steeper ones going towards the road

26th we're there either at Dowie's or Staunton depending on guides or not.

Would love local knowledge and someone to show my lad things I don't know. I'll try and ride them of course.

26th is perfect, happy with either.

Had a little play around the off piste close to the trail centre after doing 5 climbs / 4 of the DH runs to start.

Think I found the super cross Singletrack then into a downhill that was quite fun with loads of tight hairpins - not sure if it was the super cross DH or Vape into Bear Trap looking at trail forks. Then did Y2K (right hand option) and along to the rubber duck bit and did one off piste trail there.