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So, my wife is having some coaching at FoD this weekend and I will be at a loose end. What should I ride?
I've got about 3 hours on Friday afternoon and the same on Saturday morning. While I'm happy to ride the Verderers (again) I'd like to use the opportunity to do a little exploring, maybe some of the off-piste/enduro stuff. I'm not sure I fancy the DH trails (but tell me I'm wrong).
I'm a fairly confident trail rider, erring on the side of wheel-on-the ground but not exclusively. I'll give most things a look.
A couple of caveats:
- I've been really ill with lyme disease this year and don't have a lot of fitness, especially riding uphill. Lower distance is probably where I'm at.
- I'll be on my own and I'm the only driver so I need to avoid injuring myself.
Any thoughts, or good loops you can recommend?
Ride the longer newer red. Starting from uplift push up, follow it from there.
it’s ace and ends with the new Boneyard trail
good workout and fun.
Do one of your days (suggest Sat when Cannop will be packed) from Parkend. Big Pig. Dowies. Etc. Dean Forest cycles for great food and drink.
What’s big pig?
Hill behind the train station.
It’s a steady twisty trail that uses all the hill… so great if you don’t want too many climbs, or a tricky decent. Just watch your knuckles on the trees.
Oh, recommendation is for OP and their requirements. Probably too tame for you and yours!
There's a gpx here with the enduro hill trails, they're absolutely fantastic- sort of grey area trails with proper maintenance but still natural feeling.
The DH trails are pretty great to be fair, I wouldn't discount them! They're well graded and there's loads so you can pick whatever you like. Mr. Rooty is a fav of mine. I'd also recommend trying the adaptive trail there. Launchpad is their 'blue' DH trail and is by far the most dangerous trail on the hill, watch your speed on the rollers...
I love the blue XC trail at FoD but much less of a fan of the red myself, including the adit bit. Not sure if there is a new bit beyond that.
Then there is just a ton of off piste everywhere. Strava is your friend for finding that. Honestly though there is 6h of riding between the DH trails and enduro hill quite easily, and that keeps you near to the cycle centre and their burgers.
https://pedalabikeaway.co.uk/cycling-trails-for-everyone/downhill-and-enduro-trails/
The sallowvallets dh stuff has the advantage of being pretty easy to navigate, and it's not super hard, don't be put off by the "dh" name. The push up/ride up is pretty orrible on a normal bike though. Some of the jump lines are pretty joyless if you're not into air.
But sheepskull into flatland is a classic, everything from the "hub" after the top of GBU is pretty approachable... The bottom of corkscrew can be a bit overwhelming, lines and roots everwhere but the top is excellent. Pretty much everything is doable at different speeds, like ski run is imo best handled by smashing into things and hopping stuff but it all rolls
(last visit, I'd just smashed my ribs up so I just couldn't do any sort of clever or really aggressive riding, and seeking out all these wheels-on-the-ground, lower impact lines that I'd usually ignore was actually pretty satisfying. Amazing what you miss)
Parkend trails are fantastic but it's definitely harder to navigate, and there's just enough spicier stuff to make it a wee bit of a trickier recommend. Same problem as any offpiste thing, if there's one trail to worry about, you're always going to end up on that one trail 😛 Though i think maybe all the harder stuff ran down to the road on the right?
Thanks for all the recommendations so far. I'll take a look at them in the morning. Especially the gpx.
I might be stuck with Cannop as that's where the coaching is. Just had a wee look at Parkend on. Trail forks, is it just big pig, Dr John's and redwood? Or have I missed something.
Don't be too worried about recommending spicy stuff, but I won't be wearing a full face.
Only a fraction of fod stuff is on trailforks etc any more. strava heatmap is still quite useful though. Parkend stuff that I mentioned is all to the west of parkend, just past the campsite place but that's just what we happened to ride, there's millions of trails in them thar woods.
I might be stuck with Cannop as that's where the coaching is. Just had a wee look at Parkend on. Trail forks, is it just big pig, Dr John's and redwood? Or have I missed something.
Given where you are going to be, I would ride the off piste stuff in the Sallowvalets area, there is more than enough to keep you entertained. If you want to venture a little further afield head over the road which goes up to Broadwell & ride the stuff on Barnhill. There is plenty there too & the climb isn’t bad.
I wouldn’t waste your time riding Big Pig or any of the other dross on that hill side. We’ve lived here over 6 years & ive ridden it twice. Both times it was shyte.
There's a gpx here with the enduro hill trails, they're absolutely fantastic- sort of grey area trails with proper maintenance but still natural feeling.
Just downloaded that, looks like a good place to start planning. Thank you.
Given where you are going to be, I would ride the off piste stuff in the Sallowvalets area, there is more than enough to keep you entertained. If you want to venture a little further afield head over the road which goes up to Broadwell & ride the stuff on Barnhill. There is plenty there too & the climb isn’t bad.
Are the Barnhill trails the ones down at the southern end? Just going off the Strava heatmap. Any recommendations?
In short, yep.
Hard to recommend actual trails there as they change most weeks but the easier stuff drops down into the main fire road & there is probably 20 different tracks you can pick from.
The harder stuff starts above the quarry & drops down onto the tramway.
@ShanAndy. When you mention your fitness due to the Lyme Disease issue, how bad is it? The majority of stuff being mentioned above is really nice riding but requires you to ride or push back to the top multiple times. If you have an eeb then ignore me, you are sorted, but if you are under your own steam just be aware of the climbs if they are going to mess you up. Lymes is an absolute fu@@er isn't it, so dibilitating.
+1 for lapping Barnhill until you're tired. Easy to navigate as it's one climb for all the main stuff (you can go over the west side of the valley for the quarry tracks which are a bit more full on.
@ShanAndy. When you mention your fitness due to the Lyme Disease issue, how bad is it? The majority of stuff being mentioned above is really nice riding but requires you to ride or push back to the top multiple times. If you have an eeb then ignore me, you are sorted, but if you are under your own steam just be aware of the climbs if they are going to mess you up. Lymes is an absolute fu@@er isn't it, so dibilitating.
It is indeed a mother lovemaker. Thanks for checking in.
It's been a loooong road to here since diagnosis in December. It has been awful, but October is a "one step forward" month so far. I can probably do 15km or about 300m climbing. Unless it's a good day, then I can do a bit more. I'll be taking it really easy on the ups and can always stop when I'm tired.
Looking through my Strava history I normally do between 2000 and 4000ft of climbing when I am there and these days that is on an eeb. What might be an idea if you enjoy a bit of sessioning is to have a play around in the new(ish) skills area. It isn't that easy to find, for some reason they haven't clearly signed it. Instead of heading up the push-up that runs between GBU and Launch Pad just head along the fire road until you start seeing the new green trails on your right. At some point along there there is a sign on the left for the red, follow that for a couple of minutes and keep an eye out up and left and you will see the start hill for the jumps and drops area. After that you can head up the winding climb and then drop into a nice twisty section of the red, and as someone said earlier, from there you can find the new trail 'Boneyard' which is fun. It's a shame I am tied up this Friday otherwise I would have popped over and loaned you my eeb so you could have had a proper FoD experience. Assuming the coaching is with KC Coaching, Katy and Sam are both brilliant, and your wife will have an excellent session with them.
Assuming the coaching is with KC Coaching, Katy and Sam are both brilliant, and your wife will have an excellent session with them.
She is: she's doing two sessions over two days. She's very much looking forward to it. I've heard very good things about them, and was hoping to book onto a 1:1 but they're too popular.
Looking through my Strava history I normally do between 2000 and 4000ft of climbing when I am there and these days that is on an eeb.
I'm on an analogue, so that amount of climbing is waay beyond me at the moment (it will come, but not yet).
What might be an idea if you enjoy a bit of sessioning is to have a play around in the new(ish) skills area. It isn't that easy to find, for some reason they haven't clearly signed it. Instead of heading up the push-up that runs between GBU and Launch Pad just head along the fire road until you start seeing the new green trails on your right. At some point along there there is a sign on the left for the red, follow that for a couple of minutes and keep an eye out up and left and you will see the start hill for the jumps and drops area. After that you can head up the winding climb and then drop into a nice twisty section of the red, and as someone said earlier, from there you can find the new trail 'Boneyard' which is fun.
Thanks for the tip. I'll see if I can find it.
It's a shame I am tied up this Friday otherwise I would have popped over and loaned you my eeb so you could have had a proper FoD experience.
You are too kind, thank you for even considering it. My energy levels fluctuate quite a bit at the moment, I wouldn't want you putting yourself out only for me to be too broken to ride much.
I'm on an analogue, so that amount of climbing is waay beyond me at the moment (it will come, but not yet).
Worth noting the uplift can often take extras for a one off payment.
Last couple of times I have ridden at Cannop I would ride the first loop then pay for the uplift, session some of the upper trails before a run down then doing a similar thing. Pushing from the middle fire road is much nicer than all the way up and it's more mellow.
I'm on an analogue, so that amount of climbing is waay beyond me at the moment (it will come, but not yet).
Worth noting the uplift can often take extras for a one off payment.
Last couple of times I have ridden at Cannop I would ride the first loop then pay for the uplift, session some of the upper trails before a run down then doing a similar thing. Pushing from the middle fire road is much nicer than all the way up and it's more mellow.
I was also going to mention that. It's £5 for an uplift, but you can get a bunch of 5 for £20 and they can be used on completely different days.
Well,
It's best I didn't arrange to meet anyone.
We were half way across the Ccotswolds when an(other) injector blew on the car. Seven odd hours after we left Winchester, we have been towed home with the car at the garage.
Not the best weekend's riding we've had.
Our family motto is "because we're not allowed nice things"
Thank you for all the advice and suggestions. Looking forward to checking them out when we get the car back.
I was at FoD on a gravel ride on Sunday, there must have been at least a couple of hundred people at Pedalabikeaway at lunch time, is it normally that rammed? It's the first time I've been since about 2018, was much quieter then, by the looks of it eMTBs are pretty ubiquitous.
I was at FoD on a gravel ride on Sunday, there must have been at least a couple of hundred people at Pedalabikeaway at lunch time, is it normally that rammed? It's the first time I've been since about 2018, was much quieter then, by the looks of it eMTBs are pretty ubiquitous.
Mostly yes... especially if dry or sunny, more so if both... place is rammed all the time.
Was very busy on Sunday - I got there about 9:40 and had to park up the fire road a bit. The place was pretty rammed even then. It's getting very popular but then conditions were pretty much perfect.
Yes I'd say it's over 50% of MTBers are now on eBikes - or at least that's how it feels on the climbs when you're blowing out your a*** and they come passed you chatting away to each other.
I'll just repeat this for weekend visitors on dry sunny days...
Do one of your days (suggest Sat when Cannop will be packed) from Parkend.
...and importantly...
Dean Forest cycles for great food and drink.
https://www.deanforestcycles.co.uk/cafe/
You can still include a few Cannop trails in your all day ride... and there's loads of good riding between.