Hi ,
I’m heading up to FOD in April to meet up with friends travelling down from Lancs .
Our plan is two full days riding , one being the trail centre the other I’m looking for linking up sections of off piste stuff .
We are staying in Parkend so I’m thinking start off with Dowies - Shutcastle , anymore recommendations to fill out the day much appreciated.
Can’t seem to find much info on what’s at Cannop , Barnhill .
What’s the stuff like over the road from the cycle centre trail head .
Im not over familiar with the area , so this will all be new to us .
Thanks
Quite enjoy Big Pig for a warm up. Very easy but fun downhill only trail which loses the height slowly, and to get to it there's a fireroad + short bit of tarmac climb to warm you up. Nothing to test you... although you might punch a tree if you take it too fast... it's proper singletrack.
With FOD it’s always having local knowledge that finds you the best stuff and some areas are more closely guarded than others. If you park at the trail centre and ride up to the little pump track / skills area (following arrows to the start of the red and blue trails), turn left and follow the fireroad there out of the centre.
As you pedal along that you’ll find the bottom of the 2 official enduro trails that are good for a bit of sessioning - there is one slightly brutal climb up to then just before you get to the bottom of the enduro trails themselves.
Once you’ve done a bit of that if you continue along the fireroad away from the trail centre you’ll cross a road and then the hill on your right is covered with off piste stuff. Rather than take the first climb you see up (also quite brutal) carry on until you find another climb going off at about a 45 degree angle with some ruts down the middle. That takes you to one end of the hill. Just have an explore and okay with trails along there. Should be enough to last you a few hours. You could then continue along and try to join up with Dowies / Shutcastle.
I’ve not been to Mallards Pike for a few years but understand there are some new trails there since all the logging was done. You need to go up the fireroad near the close end of the lake I think and look for trails on your right…..but don’t quote me on that. I believe these are more tech / difficult than most stuff at Dowies / the other bits I’ve mentioned.
There are SO many trails. I could spend a day at Doeys (according to Doey himself it rhymes with Joey). Or Shutcastle. Or the two maybe.
I’ve been told about a few steep ones straight down to the valley (come out onto the road) from near the games pitch at the top of Ellwood (home to Doeys).
Alan, Michelle the landlady’s husband at the Foundry pub in a Parkend (good place to eat or even stay) is a trail builder/maintenance guy with the DTV. He’ll advise.
Also chat at Deans Cycles co owner Alex is a rider. Good coffee too. Buy a few bits. Nice to see (and support) a well stocked local shop. We need them.
I get up there 2-3 times a year and like it a lot. Never get bored.
At the Cannop trailcentre, the blue descent (Verderers) from the uplift drop off spot is a good track when it’s not a busy day.
The PBA shop there is decent too. And hires.
As with all these things, it depends on the type of day you want to have, how much you like climbing, to get to trails & your appetite for easy, steep, natural, high consequence stuff.
Lots of it doesn’t exist on Strava or other platforms, due to a challenging relationship with Forestry, and locals wanting to keep certain places off the radar, for a multitude of reasons.
Most of the places named are fairly common knowledge and you can follow your nose to find things. You may well struggle to link it all together unless you are a seasoned FoD rider however.
So much choice here, and it depends a bit on your groups abilities. As already said, plenty to do at doeys and shutcastle, though I find them all a bit flat, straight and blown out. There's also Whiters trails on the left of doeys. Probably about 8-10 trails in total. They are alk steeper and more more technical than anything on the doeys/shutcastle side. Most go down to Fetter hill road which Is a bit narrow and I always seem to get a few close passes there.
Barnhill is the area south of pedalaway/the official trails. Good trails, but some are getting a bit beaten up and plenty of ebike/strava straight line cut throughs.
Staple edge -mallards pike. Also good, rides well after rain. Decent amount there again after lots was lost during felling.
Forest road/whitecroft. Fast, straight, boggy in winter. O.k for a couple of hours.
Staunton.... this is my local spot. There's enough here for probably 4 or 5 decent day rides with no descents repeated. Some is o.k after rain, a lot of them are very slippery and some quite steep.
Best advice is get a guide if you want to make the most of it.... though I'm not sure they're actually allowed to show you the unsanctioned trails, which is all the good ones! Drop me a message and I might be available to show you around if its on the weekend.
If you don't know the area that well yourself, get a guide basically... Simply put, you can ride past countless trails you might not have known were there otherwise!
Rode Mallards Pike again the other week for the first time in ages, and it's riding really well again after a lot of work rebuilding/recreating most of the trails since it was all logged. Can easily be linked up with a session at Dowies/Shutcastle, with Big Pig as a potential linking trail and a stop at the cafe next to Dean Forest Cycles too...
The place is ever evolving, ever changing. Unless you're riding there week in week out, knowledge (and I include my own here) can quickly become outdated...
As for the trail centre stuff...?
Honestly... I'd plan 2 days of off piste myself... Consider riding at Staunton, Ross, Pludds or even Pillowell (or combination of the above) on one day if doing Dowies/Shutcastle etc. the other... Will be a lot more fun IMO!
Mboy makes a couple of good points there, though I think it depends on your abilities and what you like riding. Also, I think the trails at the Pludds are gone. Haven't been in a while now but I heard they all got destroyed durning felling. Personally, I don't ride any of the main trail centre stuff - to the point where I don't really know what's there anymore, despite it being a 20 minute ride from my front door. Every time I go down there it's much the same, the unsurfaced stuff is beaten up and a lot of the corners have been straight-lined whilst the surfaced stuff isn't very well built and has a horrible loose surface on it that washes badly when it's dry. Part of the reason why I left the local trail building volunteer group to it years ago, but that's another story.
The trails at Ross are good, especially if you like it narrow and twisty. The trails at pillowell are the same ones I mentioned at Whitecroft/forest road. They're o.k, but I wouldn't go there for a day ride personally though they can easily be tagged on ti a Staple edge/mallards pike day.
I'm fairly certain that unless things have changed or there's a few rule bending guides around that you won't get a professional, insured guide for the offpiste stuff. I don't think insurance companies will cover it but they're unsanctioned trails. Some are tolerated, others have signs saying to stick to gravel surfaced tracks.
Drop me a message if you want someone to show you around, or I can recommend a few local guides who 'might' be willing to show you around professionally, I.E, paid but insured and first aid qualified etc. All my stuff has expired/no longer practiced, but I am experienced in that area.
The trails at pillowell are the same ones I mentioned at Whitecroft/forest road. They're o.k, but I wouldn't go there for a day ride personally though they can easily be tagged on ti a Staple edge/mallards pike day.
As a local to these trails in particular, there is a hell of a lot here with a few very fun steep tech trails included alongside the more flowy ones. It definitely can get boggy in winter but if you know where you're going there's a whole day's worth of riding here. It's absolutely not all fast and straight in the slightest.
Echoing others saying if you're not familiar with FOD offpiste you'll 100% need a guide to get the most out of it.
Also ignore the Big Pig recommendation, it's crap. There are dozens of much better trails around.
To be fair, I live almost equidistant between Pillowell/Forest Road & Fetter, yet I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I have ridden there. It’s pretty dull, and really sh*t in the winter.
As a group that just wants to do a morning on the off-piste stuff, and is used to Barry Sidings, Risca etc (more steep and techy than jumps), which of the areas would be best un-guided?
We don't mind exploring a bit and I've done some runs around Bixslade before that I could find again if we get a bit stuck.
The Dowies (sp) and Shuttcastle are the easiest to find/navigate, but they're not as tech as Barrys or Risca so may leave you disappointed.
You really want Rubber Duck as described earlier as "over the road" from Enduro trails, the stuff there on both sides of the quarry is far more techie.
Barnhill? That's the area I've been before. Be happy to go back and nose around there then move on to Dowies if needed. Doesn't need to be super steep to be honest, as long as its fun!
So many great suggestions !! Thank you
we don’t mind climbing but kind of want a more natural feel to the ride , not a descend , climb back , over & over . We will be doing that on the Thursday @ the trail centre .
Dh, single tracks , XC mixed bag and new fun stuff is what I’m after .
Sounds like Doeys will be a good starting point then maybe ride up towards the trail centre and see what we find .
It is possible to do a whole loop of all the places, really depends on the group fitness and the weather.
Possible to put together a best of fod, linking it all together, rather than bashing the same climb over and over.
